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Designs  made  by  pupils  in  the  Trade  School  for  Girls,  Rue  du  Marais, 

Brussels. 


A  Glance 
at 

Some  European  and  American 
Vocational  Schools 

FOR 

Children  from  Twelve  to  Sixteen  Years  of  Age 


PUBLISHED  BY 

THE  CONSUMERS'  LEAGUE  OF  CONNECTICUT 
HARTFORD,  1911 


y 


A    Glance    at    Some    European    and    American 

Vocational  Schools  for  Children  Between 

12  and  1 6  Years  of  Age. 


The  Result  of  an  Investigation   of   Some   Schools  in   Germany,   Bel- 
gium,  Holland,   England,  and  the  United   States,   Made 
by    the    Consumers'    League  of  Connecticut, 
September  loog-Februray  1910. 

The  reasons  that  led  to  a  study  of  the  opportunities 
for  vocational  training  offered  to  children  from  twelve  to 
sixteen  years  of  age  are  of  so  great  significance  and  to  the 
general  public  so  little  known,  that  a  consideration  of 
them  is  given  first  by  way  of  introduction  to  this  paper. 

We  have  regarded  our  overcrowded  high  schools  and 
the  rapidly  growing  number  of  our  grammar  schools  with 
true  American  pride  in  our  educational  advantages,  and 
have  remained  in  ignorance  of  the  fact  that  sixty-nine  and 
one-half  per  cent,  of  all  the  children  who  enter  the 
lower  grades  of  our  grammar  schools  in  Connecticut  have 
disappeared  by  the  end  of  the  sixth  grade.  Where  are 
they?  Some  have  been  retarded  and  may  still  be  found 

3 

242240 


THE    NEED    OF    VOCATIONAL    TRAINING 

in  the  lower  grades  from  which  they  will  never  advance, 
but  the  great  majority  have  reached  the  age  of  fourteen 
and  have  left  school  from  whatever  grade  they  may  hap- 
pen to  have  reached.  It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that 
hordes  of  children  have  been  leaving  school  to  take  up 
their  life  work  with  little  or  no  knowledge  of  reading 
and  writing  and  practically  none  of  arithmetic. 

The  statistics  furnished  us  by  the  compelling  agent 
who  enforces  the  state  child-labor  law  in  the  district  in 
which  the  cities  of  Hartford  and  New  Britain  are  located 
show  that  634  out  of  1,078  applicants  for  working  cer- 
tificates from  September  i,  1909  to  May  i,  1910  were 
foreign-born.  It  is  these  children  who  are  a  menace  to 
the  integrity  of  our  state,  arriving  as  they  do  generally 
with  not  enough  schooling  to  enable  them  to  enter  the 
grades  where  they  belong  by  virtue  of  their  years.  They 
are  misfits  who  are  a  clog  upon  the  classes  in  which  they 
are  placed;  they  are  ashamed  of  their  size  and  their  ig- 
norance, and  are  eager  to  leave  school.  To  the  needs  of 
these  children  who  form  by  far  the  largest  proportion 
of  our  young  workers,  our  educational  system  has  paid 
almost  no  attention.  Yet  every  sentiment  of  humanity 
and  every  reason  of  expediency  should  urge  us  to  make 
special  provision  for  them,  born  as  they  are  of  ignorant 
and  impoverished  aliens,  yet  now  the  foster  children  of 
our  state,  and  soon  to  become  a  large  part  of  its  govern- 
ing body. 

The  large  withdrawal  of  American-born  children  from 
the  fifth  and  sixth  grades  of  our  schools  and  the  still 


THE    NEED    OF    VOCATIONAL   TRAINING 

larger  withdrawal  of  foreign-born  children  from  school, 
irrespective  of  grade,  is  due  in  most  cases  not  to  the 
need  of  increased  earnings  for  the  poor  family,  as  many 
suppose,  but  in  at  least  eighty  per  cent,  of  the  cases  to  the 
failure  of  the  school  to  hold  the  child.  The  sons  and 
daughters  of  the  ignorant  laborer  with  no  tradition  of 
education  behind  them  and  with 'no  comprehension  of  its 
industrial  value,  become  restless  under  the  book-learning 
of  the  school  at  the  age  when  the  rapid  development  of 
the  powers  begins  and  the  period  of  ripening  activity 
sets  in.  For  most  children  this  is  at  the  age  of  twelve 
years. 

Probably  no  period  of  life  is  more  valuable  for  educa- 
tional purposes  than  the  period  from  twelve  to  sixteen 
years;  it  is  the  time  when  the  memory  is  most  retentive, 
the  reason  becoming  vigorous,  and  the  powers  of  com- 
prehension suddenly  illuminated.  And  no  period  is  in 
general  so  worthless  for  productivity  in  the  industrial 
world  as  this.  This  fact  is  abundantly  proved  by  the 
large  number  of  boys  of  fourteen  and  fifteen  years  of  age, 
who  float  about  from  one  factory  to  another  with  long 
intervening  periods  of  idleness,  who  cannot  hold  a  po- 
sition more  than  a  few  weeks  at  most.  Seventy  per  cent, 
of  all  the  boys  who  actually  get  work  in  our  factories  is 
probably  a  fair  estimate  to  make  of  these  floaters;  yet 
these  same  boys  who  tire  alike  of  the  drudgery  of  the 
school  and  the  monotony  of  factory  life,  inattentive  stud- 
ents and  irresponsible  workers,  these  same  boys  are  not 
incapable  of  untiring  application  where  their  interests  are 
aroused,  and  a  vent  for  their  superfluous  energy  supplied 

5 


THE    NEED    OF   VOCATIONAL   TRAINING 

them.  It  is  at  this  point  that  society,  powerful  and  en- 
lightened, should  step  in,  and  should  assume  the  respons- 
ibility for  the  proper  education  of  the  uninformed  and 
heedless  child. 

(  For  the  ignorant  boy  of  fourteen  who  leaves  school 
to  spend  the  greater  part  of  his  time  for  the  next  few 
years  in  casual  employment,  there  is  but  one  future  pos- 
sible. He  must  eventually  enter  the  ranks  of  the  unskilled 
day-laborer  who  gets  no  training  in  efficiency.  A  con- 
siderable body  of  statistics  is  now  available  to  prove  that 
he  never  develops  a  high  wage-earning  capacity.  There 
is  for  him  neither  money  nor  promotion;  his  wife  must 
face  a  depressing,  life-long  struggle;  and  his  children  will 
be  deprived  of  what  we  in  America  regard  our  most  sacred 
right,  opportunity.  Carefully  gathered  statistics  in  the 
state  of  Massachusetts  report  that  four  out  of  every  five 
children  in  that  state  who  leave  school  at  the  age  of  four- 
teen enter  casual  or  unskilled  employment. 

It  is  in  the  interests  of  these  helpless  children  of  the 
poor,  who  will  in  their  turn  become  the  progenitors  of 
another  hapless  generation,  that  the  Consumers'  League 
of  Connecticut  has  undertaken  to  stimulate  an  interest  in 
providing  courses  in  vocational  training  in  our  grammar 
schools. 

The  aim  of  this  paper  is  not  to  discuss  systems  and 
details  of  technical  training,  —  for  what  they  should  be  is 
a  problem  for  the  schoolmen  to  solve,  —  but  rather  to 
put  into  the  hands  of  the  general  reader  a  presentation 
of  the  problem  itself  and  of  the  efforts  being  made  in 


VOCATIONAL    SCHOOLS    IN    GERMANY 

some  countries  to  meet  it,  the  scope  and  present  stage  of 
development  of  these  efforts.  For  in  our  country  it  is 
not  the  schools  that  have  initiated  educational  reforms, 
but  the  urgent  call  of  the  people. 

The  problem  for  Connecticut  is  briefly  this : 
How  shall  our  school  work  be  so  planned  that  a  child 
may  be  fitted  to  enter  a  trade,  commercial  life,  or  domes- 
tic employment,  his  training  beginning  at  the  age  when 
tastes  begin  to  differentiate,  yet  not  be  deprived  before 
he  is  fourteen  of  the  possibility  of  going  into  and  through 
a  secondary  school  and  entering  college? 

And  how  may  subjects  be  so  chosen  and  taught  in  our 
trade  schools  that  we  may  graduate  men  and  women  not 
workers  only? 

GERMANY. 

'  Germany  was  the  first  government  as  a  government 
to  appreciate  the  value  of  industrial  training  in  the  schools 
to  the  industrial  development  of  the  nation,  and  to  ac- 
cept the  fact  that  the  child  who  leaves  school  at  four- 
teen loses  much  of  what  he  has  acquired  in  the  first  eight 
years  of  school  life.  To  secure  to  every  boy,  therefore, 
a  permanent  benefit  from  his  early  schooling,  and  to  make 
of  him  a  valuable  factor  in  the  achievement  of  her  com- 
mercial ambitions,  the  imperial  government  of  Germany 
enacted  a  law  that  any  communale  may  establish  contin- 
uation schools  (Fortbildungsschulen)  and  may  compel 
boys  between  fourteen  and  eighteen  years  of  age  to  attend 
them  four  or  six  hours  a  week  at  company  expense,  i.  e. 
with  no  deduction  from  their  wages.  A  government  bill 


THE    NEED    OF   VOCATIONAL   TRAINING 

is  now  pending  to  extend  this  law  to  include  girls  between 
fourteen  and  eighteen  years  of  age.  The  hours  are  gen- 
erally given  as  off-time  in  the  day,  because  it  has  been 
found  that  boys  who  do  school  work  at  night  do  not  ac- 
complish so  much  in  the  factory. 

Before  entering  a  continuation  school,  a  boy  must 
have  spent  eight  years  in  a  Volkschule  or  public  gram- 
mar school  at  which  the  attendance  is  obligatory.  A 
parent  upon  entering  his  child  at  the  Volkschule  at  the 
age  of  six  years  chooses  between  the  Bezirksschule,  at 
which  a  very  small  tuition  fee  is  paid,  merely  nominal, 
and  the  Burgerschule  at  which  a  considerable  fee  is 
charged.  Although  the  teachers  are  the  same  and  the 
subjects  taught  are  the  same,  a  dividing  line  is  in  this 
way  drawn  at  the  very  outset  between  the  children  of 
the  well-to-do  and  the  children  of  the  poor.  It  is  this 
class  discrimination,  however  abhorrent  it  may  be  to  the 
spirit  of  American  democracy,  that  renders  the  question 
of  trade  instruction  in  the  schools  so  simple  in  Germany. 
The  boy  who  is  placed  in  the  Burgerschule  may  after  a 
few  years  leave  this  school  to  enter  a  higher  classical  or 
scientific  school  which  prepares  for  the  University,  such  as 
the  Gymnasium  or  Realschule.  The  boy  who  completes 
eight  years  in  the  Volkschule  and  who  leaves  the  public 
school  at  the  age  of  fourteen  to  take  up  a  trade  or  voca- 
tion has  open  to  him  a  choice  among  three  schools:  the 
Fortbildungsschule  which  offers  a  general  course  for 
artisans,  the  Fachschule  which  offers  artisans  a  special 
course  in  a  given  trade  only,  and  a  trade  school  which 


VOCATIONAL    SCHOOLS    IN    GERMANY 

begins  at  the  same  place  as  the  Fachschule  but  carries  the 
boy  farther  along.  Those  who  leave  the  trade  school  may 
and  often  do  become  artisans,  but  are  prepared  also  to 
advance  higher  according  to  their  character  and  ability. 
This  is  the  scheme  in  Saxony,  and  is  similar  in  the  main 
to  that  in  other  German  principalities. 


ADDENDA  TO  PAGE  8 


I.  Tuition  is  gratuitous  in  the  Volksschulen  of  Prussia  and  Bavaria. 

II.  By  a  proclamation  of  the  Emperor  of  Germany  as  King  of  Prussia, 
dated   November  26,   1900,  all  nine-year  secondary  schools  of  Prussia  were 
placed  upon  an  equality  in  regard  to  the  admission  of  students  to  the  univer- 
sities.    Naturally,  however,  students  from  secondary  schools  of  the  modern 
class  do  not  enter  the  faculties  for  which  classical  studies  are  an  essential 
preparation.     The   following   table   shows   the   preparation   of   matriculated 
students  in  the  four  faculties  in  the  twenty-one  German  universities  in  the 
summer  of  190^. 

From  Prussian  Institutions 

Gymnasia  Real-gymnasia          I          Oberrealschulen 

15,987  2,856  1,741 

From  Non-Prussian  Institutions 

Gymnasia  Real-gymnasia  Oberrealschulen 

16,631  3,143  1,449 


an  illness  of  a  given  number  of  weeks. 


THE    NEED    OF   VOCATIONAL   TRAINING 

is  now  pending  to  extend  this  law  to  include  girls  between 
fourteen  and  eighteen  years  of  age.  The  hours  are  gen- 
erally given  as  off-time  in  the  day,  because  it  has  been 
found  that  boys  who  do  school  work  at  night  do  not  ac- 
complish so  much  in  the  factory. 

Before  entering  a  continuation  school,  a  boy  must 
have  spent  eierht  years  in  a  Volkschule  or  public  gram- 


course  in  a  given  trade  only,  and  a  trade  school  which 

8 


VOCATIONAL    SCHOOLS    IN    GERMANY 

begins  at  the  same  place  as  the  Fachschule  but  carries  the 
boy  farther  along.  Those  who  leave  the  trade  school  may 
and  often  do  become  artisans,  but  are  prepared  also  to 
advance  higher  according  to  their  character  and  ability. 
This  is  the  scheme  in  Saxony,  and  is  similar  in  the  main 
to  that  in  other  German  principalities. 

THE  PRUSSIAN  CONTINUATION  SCHOOL. 

The  Prussian  continuation  schools  are  all  planned  after 
the  same  model,  and  a  description  of  one  will  suffice  to 
give  a  good  idea  of  all  in  this  kingdom.  The  following 
facts  are  contributed  from  the  continuation  school  at 
Charlottenburg,  a  suburb  of  Berlin.  This  school  provides 
a  course  of  six  hours  a  week  for  three  years  to  boys  from 
fourteen  to  seventeen  years  of  age.  The  six  hours  may 
be  divided  between  two  days  or  may  be  placed  all  in  one 
day,  but  always  include  two  hours  of  drawing.  In  the 
evening  elective  courses  are  offered. 

The  subjects  taught  are  the  same  for  all  boys : 

I  bookkeeping,  business  correspondence,  and  labor 

laws. 

II  German  composition,  the  exercises  relating  to 

the  work,  as  for  example  the  duties  of  an 
apprentice. 

III  arithmetic,  the  examples  relating  to  the  trades, 

as  for  instance  the  cost  of  the  manufacture  of 
a  given  machine,  the  cost  to  a  day-laborer  of 
an  illness  of  a  given  number  of  weeks. 


VOCATIONAL    SCHOOLS    IN    GERMANY 

IV  technology : 

(a)  lighting,  heating,  the  hygiene  of  the 

workshop,  etc. 

(b)  tool  and  machine  study. 

(c)  the    study   of   materials,    their   origin, 

cost,  etc. 

V  citizenship. 

VI  drawing,    specialized    trade    drawing    from    the 

start. 

When  more  time  is  possible,  practical  work  in  a  school 
workshop  is  given.  The  school  workshop  is  to  be  pre- 
ferred to  a  factory  workshop  because  the  manufacturer 
uses  the  machine  only  and  naturally  thinks  of  his  product 
and  not  the  boy.  In  the  school  workshop,  handwork 
only  is  required  of  the  boy  for  some  months  before  he  is 
taught  the  use  of  machinery,  on  the  principle  that  only 
by  doing  handwork  does  one  come  to  appreciate  the  value 
and  possibilities  of  the  machine.  The  factory  gives  a 
one-sided  training  only,  whereas  the  school  should  give 
the  boy  a  glance  over  the  whole  subject  with  which  he  is 
dealing.  For  example,  to  a  boy  who  expects  to  set  panes 
of  glass,  some  knowledge  of  artistic  glass  work  should  be 
given,  a  study  of  color  and  composition  and  the  history 
of  stained  glass  windows. 

The  principle  underlying  the  Prussian  continuation 
school  system  is  a  twofold  one  and  may  be  expressed  in 
the  two  words,  Kenntniss  and  Specializirung,  understand- 
ing and  specialization. 


10 


VOCATIONAL  SCHOOLS  IN  GERMANY 

SAXONY. 

Many  principalities  have  enacted  more  stringent  com- 
pulsory education  laws  for  minors  over  fourteen  years  of 
age  than  the  Empire.  In  Saxony,  where  industrial  edu- 
cation has  reached  a  remarkable  development,  the  law 
requires  that  all  boys  between  fourteen  and  seventeen 
years  of  age  who  are  at  work  shall  attend  school  eight 
hours  a  week  in  a  continuation  school,  four  out  of  the 
eight  hours  being  given  up  to  drawing. 

A  brief  description  of  the  trade  schools  of  Dresden 
for  such  boys  will  give  an  idea  of  the  extent  of  the  de- 
velopment of  industrial  training  in  Saxony.  These  schools 
include  city  trade  schools  for  boys  and  for  girls  (Stadtische- 
Gewerbeschulen) ;  guild  schools  (Innungsschulen)  for 
barbers  and  friseurs,  carpenters,  bookbinders,  butchers, 
cooks,  tinkers,  and  shoemakers ;  compulsory  guild  schools 
(Zwang-Innungsschulen)  for  bookbinders,  painters,  con- 
fectioners and  pastry  cooks,  chimney  sweeps,  blacksmiths, 
upholsterers,  joiners;  association  schools  (Vereinschulen) 
for  hotel  boys,  druggists,  typewriters,  horticulturists,  etc. ; 
commercial  schools;  music,  singing,  and  theater  schools; 
art  schools  for  photographers,  decorators,  etc. ;  schools  of 
housekeeping ;  schools  for  tailors,  dressmakers,  and  seams- 
tresses. 

The  city  trade  school  for  boys  (a  Fach-  und  Fort- 
bildungsschule)  gives  instruction  from  8  a.  m.  to  2  p.  m. 
six  days  in  the  week,  and  assigns  home  work  so  that 
pupils  cannot  work  in  the  factories  at  the  same  time.  A 
boy  who  attends  this  school  for  a  full  year  need  not  there- 


n 


VOCATIONAL    SCHOOLS    IN    GERMANY 

after  attend  a  continuation  school,  since  thirty-six  hours 
a  week  of  instruction  for  a  year  is  more  than  an  equiv- 
alent for  eight  hours  a  week  for  three  years.  Almost  no 
shopwork  is  given  here;  the  boys  have  already  had  prac- 
tice in  simple  handwork  in  a  carefully  graded  course  in 
the  Volkschule,  and  it  is  thought  more  profitable  that 
they  should  give  much  time  to  drawing  and  to  the  study 
of  subjects  relating  to  the  trades,  such  as  mathematics, 
bookkeeping,  labor  laws,  shop  and  personal  hygiene,  etc. 
In  the  day  school,  those  who  take  kindred  subjects  are 
grouped  together  in  classes: 

(a)  bakers,   butchers,  waiters,   cooks,   etc. 

(b)  carpenters,  joiners,  masons,  tinkers,  etc. 

(c)  machinists,  mechanicians,  locksmiths,  etc. 

The  requirements  for  admission  to  the  day  school  are  the 
completion  of  eight  years  in  the  Volkschule,  a  knowledge 
of  what  is  taught  in  the  middle  grades  of  the  Volkschule, 
and  good  moral  character.  In  the  evening  and  Sunday 
school,  advanced  work  is  given  in  mathematics,  language, 
the  sciences  of  physics  and  chemistry,  and  drawing  both 
free-hand  and  mechanical. 

A  guild  school  (Innungsschule)  is  a  kind  of  co- 
operative school  in  which  the  employers  are  interested. 
The  boys  who  attend  a  guild  school  are  exempt  from  at- 
tendance at  a  continuation  school.  Through  the  courtesy 
of  the  directors  an  interesting  study  was  made  of  a  number 
of  these  schools. 


12 


VOCATIONAL    SCHOOLS    IN    GERMANY 

The  school  for  chimney-sweeps  in  Dresden  is  a  com- 
pulsory guild  school  (Zwangs-Innungsschule)  for  the  rea- 
son that  there  are  only  thirty  master-sweeps  in  the  city. 
A  Zwangsinnung  may  be  formed  when  enough  employ- 
ers desire  it  and  yet  when  at  the  same  time  there  is  need 
of  the  help  of  all  the  employers  to  pay  the  expense  of 
running  the  school.  When  an  Innung  is  very  large,  it  is 
not  usually  compulsory.  All  the  master-sweeps  in  the 
city  are  compelled  to  belong  to  this  Innung. 

Those  who  sleep  during  the  most  exhilarating  hours 
of  the  day  know  little  of  the  fascinations  of  the  life  of 
the  chimney-sweep.  Up  early  in  the  morning  and  above 
the  city  when  the  rest  are  asleep,  he  is  through  at  noon 
and  dressed  up  clean  with  a  holiday  for  the  rest  of  the 
day.  He  has  work  all  the  year  around;  he  is  used  to  all 
weathers  and  never  has  colds.  There  are  not  many  acci- 
dents and  master-sweeps  get  good  pay,  four  or  five  thou- 
sand marks  a  year.  Sweeps  are  given  a  course  in  ethics, 
because,  working  as  they  do  entirely  without  supervision, 
nobody  ever  knowing  whether  their  work  is  well  done 
or  not,  they  need  to  develop  a  sense  of  responsibility  and 
to  be  taught  the  value  of  faithful  service  for  its  own  sake. 
Their  vocational  instruction  includes  a  little  of  physics  and 
chemistry,  a  study  of  heat  and  the  heat  values  of  differ- 
ent fuels,  of  gas,  smoke,  soot,  draughts,  and  the  effect 
upon  the  draught  of  the  different  heights  of  a  chimney, 
kinds  of  chimneys  and  stoves,  the  effect  of  winds  and 
moisture,  the  need  of  air  and  the  effect  of  too  little  or 
too  much,  the  use  of  the  first  air  (to  burn  up  the  gas), 

'3 


VOCATIONAL    SCHOOLS    IN    GERMANY 

and  of  the  second  air  (which  must  be  regulated  and  passed 
through  the  right  place).  The  lessons  are  illustrated  by 
a  large  number  of  models  of  houses,  factory  chimneys,  etc. 

The  school  for  butcher  boys  in  Dresden  (an  Innungs- 
schule),  is  entirely  supported  by  an  association  of  butchers. 
Those  butchers  who  do  not  belong  to  the  Innung  must 
permit  their  boys  to  go  to  the  continuation  school.  The 
school  session  is  from  2  to  6  p.  m.  once  a  week,  40  weeks 
in  the  year,  for  three  years.  Boys  in  this  trade  are  ex- 
cused from  the  four  hours  of  drawing  a  week  which  is 
required  in  the  continuation  school.  There  are  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  boys  in  this  school,  and  four  teachers  are 
regularly  employed  besides  the  director  and  a  physician 
who  gives  an  occasional  lecture. 

The  boys  learn  a  great  number  of  things  under  the 
head  of  geography  and  composition:  the  coinage  of  all 
countries  and  rates  of  exchange,  tariff  laws,  pure  food  laws, 
how  to  sterilize  milk  and  meat,  what  diseases  render 
animals  unfit  for  food,  what  use  may  be  made  of  a  tuber- 
culous cow  (it  may  be  sent  to  the  oil  factories),  the  use 
and  commercial  value  of  all  parts  of  the  animal  (e.  g.  a 
thorough  study  is  made  of  all  kinds  of  leather),  the  marks 
of  age  in  an  animal,  the  proper  ingredients  of  sausages 
and  the  adulterants  forbidden  by  law.  A  powerful  micro- 
scope is  owned  and  used  by  the  school,  but  bacteriology 
is  not  studied  since  no  science  is  taught. 

A  few  of  the  class  questions  will  give  an  idea  of  the 
character  of  the  instruction  which  is  always  practical : 

How  many  swine  in  Germany? 

14 


VOCATIONAL    SCHOOLS    IN    GERMANY 

What  are  the  characteristics  of  the  German  swine? 
What  are  the  characteristics  of  other  swine? 
In  what  principality  were  English  swine  first  intro- 
duced ? 
Why? 

How  many  sheep  in  Germany? 
From  where  are  they  imported? 

In  the  teaching  of  arithmetic  and  bookkeeping,  the 
school  is  helped  by  the  co-operation  of  the  employers. 
Each  boy  reports  every  week  the  number  of  swine,  sheep, 
etc.,  purchased  by  the  firm  for  which  he  works,  what  was 
paid  for  each  consignment,  etc.  The  trade  instruction  is 
divided  into  four  parts: 

(1)  practice     with     slaughtering     apparatus      upon 

wooden  models, 

(2)  slaughtering  of  swine, 

(3)  instruction  in  the  first  care  of  the  wounded, 

(4)  excursions  to  slaughter-houses, 

cowmarkets, 

waterworks, 

veterinary  establishments, 

blood-utilization  establishments, 

milk-sterilization  establishments. 

An  interesting  example  of  a  Vereinschule  is  the 
school  for  hotel  boys  in  Dresden,  which  has  two  sessions 
a  week,  Mondays  and  Fridays  frgm  3.30  to  6.30  p.  m. 
All  of  the  boys  in  this  school  learn  French  and  English, 

15 


VOCATIONAL    SCHOOLS    IN    GERMANY 

business  composition,  round  handwriting,  bookkeeping 
for  restaurants  and  hotels,  calculations  in  the  coinage  of 
all  nations,  rates  of  exchange,  the  use  of  checks  and 
drafts,  a  little  of  political  economy  and  law.  In  addition 
the  boys  are  divided  into  two  classes  of  cooks  and  wait- 
ers, the  cooks  to  be  taught  a  knowledge  of  all  kinds  of 
fish  and  meat,  and  the  waiters  of  all  kinds  of  liquors. 

A  few  questions  asked  in  a  class  of  waiters  when  beer 
was  under  discussion  will  again  give  an  idea  of  the  prac- 
tical nature  of  the  instruction: 

Where  in  Germany  are  the  headquarters  of  the  manu- 
facture of  beer? 

What  cities  in  Bavaria  have  extensive  breweries? 

Where  is  the  largest  brewery  in  the  world? 

What  are  the  component  parts  of  beer? 

What  is  done  first  with  the  barley? 

Why  is  it  carefully  sorted? 

What  would  be  the  effect  upon  the  beer  if  unripe 
kernels  were  used  ?  If  imperfect  ones  were  used  ? 

What  is  done  next? 

What  would  be  the  effect  if  the  grains  were  not 
washed  clean? 

What  is  the  necessary  temperature  for  brewing? 

What  method  of  heating  is  necessary? 

Why  cannot  a  fire  underneath  the  vat  be  used? 

and  so  on  through  the  whole  process  of  manufacture,  the 
reasons  for  the  use  of  sugar  and  malt,  and  the  necessity 
for  killing  the  germ.  The  interest  of  the  boys  in  the 

16 


VOCATIONAL    SCHOOLS    IN    GERMANY 

study  of  this  subject  was  quite  marked.  Practice  in  cook- 
ing is  not  given  here,  because  there  is  in  Dresden  a 
cooking  school  for  men. 

One  cannot  but  admire  the  spirit  of  the  employers 
of  Dresden,  who  have  voluntarily  formed  themselves 
into  guilds  and  associations  to  contribute  to  the  special 
instruction  of  apprentices  who  in  "the  majority  of  cases 
do  not  remain  in  their  employ,  but  go  to  all  parts  of 
Germany  and  even  to  foreign  countries.  When  inquiry 
was  repeatedly  made  into  their  main  motive,  the  reply 
was  "  to  raise  the  standing  of  the  calling."  Moreover, 
these  guild  schools  give  the  employers  a  chance  to  inter- 
est themselves  in  the  choice  of  teachers  and  the  trade 
instruction  of  their  apprentices  without  seeming  to  in- 
terfere with  the  work  of  the  schoolmen,  who  may  in 
many  cases  not  understand  the  needs  of  their  apprentices 
so  well  as  they  do  themselves. 

This  co-operation  of  employers  appeared  very  marked 
in  the  guild  school  for  bookbinders.  In  connection  with 
this  school  it  is  interesting  to  note  that,  although  there 
are  many  applicants  for  admission,  only  the  best  are  ad- 
mitted for  the  reason  that  those  who  have  no  special 
aptitude  for  the  work,  no  appreciation  of  color  and  de- 
sign, are  sure  to  fail  and  must  eventually  take  up  some 
other  subject. 

BAVARIA. 

The  Bavarian  system  of  industrial  training  has  been 
given  its  present  form  by  Dr.  George  Kerschensteiner 


VOCATIONAL    SCHOOLS    IN    GERMANY 

of  Munich,  the  most  widely  recognized  authority  on 
industrial  education  to-day,  who  holds  the  position  of 
Schulrat  and  royal  Schulkommissar  in  Bavaria.  Al- 
though in  all  essential  points,  the  school  systems  in  the 
different  principalities  are  agreed,  there  are  certain  pe- 
culiarities in  the  Bavarian  system  which  it  is  interesting 
to  note  by  way  of  comparison. 

In  the  Prussian  type  of  continuation  school,  confined 
as  it  is  to  six  hours  of  instruction  a  week,  no  place  is 
given  to  shopwork.  But  nearly  every  continuation 
school  in  Munich  combines  with  study  handwork  also 
in  a  school  workshop  (Fachliche  Fortbildungsschulen.) 
The  value  of  the  school  workshop  is  placed  high,  on  the 
ground  that  boys  who  work  only  in  a  factory  workshop 
do  not  see  so  clearly  the  relation  of  their  study  in  the 
school  to  their  work  in  the  factory,  are  more  or  less 
indifferent  to  study,  and  do  not  get  the  full  benefit  of 
their  schooling. 

The  law  in  Bavaria  does  not  fix  the  number  of  hours 
of  attendance  upon  the  school,  but  the  Schulrat  has  been 
permitted  to  determine  the  number  of  hours  in  the  differ- 
ent schools  by  the  necessities  of  the  different  trades. 
As  might  be  expected,  there  is  more  elasticity  in  the 
arrangement  and  required  number  of  hours.  Appren- 
tices in  some  trades  must  attend  school  nine  hours  a 
week,  ten  months  in  the  year,  for  four  years;  that  is,  up 
to  the  eighteenth  birthday,  full  advantage  being  taken 
of  the  law  of  the  Empire  as  to  the  maximum  age  for 
compulsory  attendance.  In  some  other  trades,  only 

18 


VOCATIONAL    SCHOOLS    IN    GERMANY 

three  years  of  school  attendance  is  required  of  the  boys, 
and  the  number  of  hours  per  week  varies  from  four  to 
thirteen. 

The  main  motive  which  makes  itself  felt  through 
Kerschensteiner's  whole  plan  of  industrial  education  is 
to  teach  the  boy  to  understand  his  .subject,  to  understand 
the  materials  and  objects  with  which  he  is  dealing. 
Kennen-lernen,  the  illumination  of  the  understanding, 
is  the  magic  key  which  will  open  the  door  to  individual 
efficiency  and  to  national  growth.  The  writer  begs  leave 
to  digress  a  moment  here  to  compare  what  seems  to 
be  our  American  motive  in  education  with  this  German 
motive.  For  it  may  be  that  in  the  midst  of  our  national 
rush  and  competition,  out  of  the  very  exigencies  of  our 
situation,  we  have  laid  hold  upon  a  more  forceful  though 
not  more  noble  motive.  It  is  to  teach  our  children  to 
think  for  themselves,  the  girl  as  well  as  the  boy,  the 
child  in  the  lower  grades  as  well  as  the  college  student. 
By  the  combination  of  these  two  motives,  Kennen-lernen, 
the  illumination  of  the  understanding  through  knowledge, 
and  Denken-lernen,  the  power  of  independent  thought, 
the  true  aim  of  all  education  will  surely  some  time  be 
reached. 

To  resume  our  subject,  in  the  city  of  Munich  fifty-six 
trades  are  taught  in  Fachliche  Fortbildungsschulen,  and 
there  are  also  in  the  city  thirteen  Bezirksfortbildungs- 
schulen,  or  continuation  schools,  for  those  who  have 
completed  eight  years  in  the  Bezirksschule,  and  who  do 
not  wish  instruction  in  a  special  trade  or  are  specially  ex- 

19 


VOCATIONAL    SCHOOLS    IN    GERMANY 

cused  from  attendance  upon  the  Fachliche  Fortbildungs- 
schulen.  Instruction  in  these  schools  covers  two  years 
with  eight  hours  a  week  of  schooling.  The  subjects 
taught  are: 

Religion, 

Reading  and  composition, 

Arithmetic  (accounts), 

Hygiene  and  citizenship, 

Handwork  in  wood  and  iron,  with  drawing, 

Gymnastics  and  swimming. 

VOCATIONAL  TRAINING  FOR  GIRLS. 

Although,  as  has  been  said,  attendance  upon  school  is 
not  yet  compulsory  for  girls  after  the  age  of  fourteen 
years  in  Germany,  nevertheless  many  trade  schools  have 
been  established  for  them. 

In  arranging  the  course  of  study  in  the  schools  for 
girls  in  Munich,  the  same  principle  of  Kennen-lernen  is 
applied,  the  learning  to  understand  the  object  with  which 
one  is  dealing.  Since  nearly  all  girls  from  the  poorer 
classes  marry  after  a  few  years  of  industrial  or  commer- 
cial work,  and  since  from  this  class  comes  our  largest  and 
most  steady  increase  in  population,  it  is  the  opinion  that 
a  trade  school  for  girls,  although  its  professed  aim  may 
be  to  train  for  special  lucrative  employments,  should 
nevertheless  not  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  the  special 
field  of  activity  for  the  girl  for  by  far  the  longest  period 
of  her  life  will  be  in  the  home.  The  priceless  object  with 

20 


VOCATIONAL    SCHOOLS    IN    GERMANY 

which  the  woman  deals  is  the  baby,  and  Kersctfensteiner's 
scheme  makes  compulsory  a  course  in  maternal  peda- 
gogy, which  should,  he  believes,  be  a  part  of  every 
woman's  training  for  life,  whether  she  is  to  be  a  working 
woman  or  a  social  leader.  It  is  believed  that  such  train- 
ing will  awaken  dormant  sympathies  in  girls,  will  develop 
a  natural  instinct  in  a  healthful  way,  and  tend  to  incline 
their  tastes  away  from  industrial  life  and  toward  domestic 
life.  For  we  must  regard  it  as  a  calamity  if  our  young 
girls  are  going  into  our  factories  faster  than  is  necessary, 
to  the  possible  detriment  of  their  health  and  the  health 
of  their  posterity. 

The  teaching  of  maternal  pedagogy  includes  instruc- 
tion as  to  the  toilet  and  diet  of  the  baby,  preventives 
of  disease,  care  of  the  child  when  going  through  the 
children's  diseases,  and  child  nurture  in  general.  An  illus- 
tration of  work  in  a  class  composed  mostly  of  peasant 
girls  of  various  ages  up  to  eighteen  will  illustrate  the 
strictly  scientific  though  elementary  nature  of  the  in- 
struction given.  The  recitation  opened  with  rapid  ques- 
tioning upon  the  toilet  of  the  baby : 

Why  does  the  baby  need  warm  clothing  at  birth? 
Why  is  woolen  warmer  than  cotton  ? 
Why  does  it  need  soft  clothing? 

Several  members  of  the  class  were  sent  to  the  black- 
board to  demonstrate  by  free-hand  drawing  that  they 
could  cut  the  various  articles  of  a  baby's  toilet,  drawing 


21 


VOCATIONAL  SCHOOLS  IN  GERMANY 

each  article  the  ordinary  size  for  a  new-born  baby,  and 
making  the  proper  curves  for  neck  and  sleeves. 

Why  does  a  baby  need  to  be  fed  every  two  hours? 

Why  is  cleanliness  a  preventive  of  disease? 

Why  is  repose  a  preventive  of  disease? 

What  is  the  value  of  repose  in  the  open  air  as  com- 
pared with  repose  indoors? 

Instruction  in  the  trade  school  for  girls  in  Munich 
is  given  in  every  kind  of  woman's  work,  hand  and  ma- 
chine sewing,  embroidery,  lace-making,  etc.  Most  of  the 
girls  who  attend  expect  to  marry,  and  are  not  preparing 
themselves  to  earn  a  living.  A  noticeable  feature  of  the 
school  is  its  normal  department,  for  the  continual  train- 
ing of  teachers  is  an  imperative  necessity  in  this  work. 
A  continuation  school  is  associated  with  it  where  Wed- 
nesday and  Saturday  afternoons  girls  from  thirteen  to 
sixteen  years  of  age  receive  instruction.  Girls  who  at- 
tend this  school  are  excused  from  attendance  upon  the 
Sunday  School  where  otherwise  the  law  in  Munich  re- 
quires them  to  study. 

The  idea  seems  general  in  Germany  that  in  the 
training  of  the  young  something  besides  technical  ef- 
ficiency should  be  aimed  at.  A  school  which  has  from  the 
outset  held  this  aim  steadily  before  it  is  the  Victoria  Con- 
tinuation School  in  Berlin.  Its  teachers  are  trained  to 
inculcate  some  moral  lesson  in  every  recitation,  no  mat- 
ter what  the  subject  is,  and  the  success  with  which  it  is 
done  is  wonderful.  To  give  one  illustration  from  a  lesson 
in  commercial  correspondence:  it  was  shown  the  girls 


22 


VOCATIONAL    SCHOOLS   IN    GERMANY 

how  easy  it  is  for  misunderstandings  to  arise,  in  just 
what  ways  they  may  come  about,  the  obstacles  and  spe- 
cial difficulties  in  the  way  of  coming  to  an  agreement. 
What  is  necessary  in  order  to  understand  another's  point 
of  view?  Goodwill;  and  much  may  be  accomplished  by 
courteous  language.  Therefore  a  kindly  spirit  is  incul- 
cated and  courteous  phrases  are  taught. 

The  school  was  founded  in  1878,  and  is  supported  by 
a  charitable  association.  It  offers  to  girls  from  poor 
homes  a  course  of  three  half  years  which  they  must  agree 
to  complete  when  they  enter.  Since  attendance  is  not 
compulsory,  and  parents  were  not  at  first  used  to  the 
idea  of  so  much  schooling  for  their  daughters,  but  few 
pupils  came  when  the  school  opened  and  its  growth  was 
slow.  It  numbers  now  about  600  pupils.  It  comprises 
a  commercial  school  and  a  school  of  millinery,  of  dress- 
making, and  of  lingerie  (the  making  of  underwear). 
Frau  Henschke,  its  founder,  always  bore  in  mind  that 
most  of  the  girls  would  become  wives  and  mothers;  she 
encouraged  all  to  pay  some  attention  to  housewifery, 
and  made  a  little  instruction  possible  for  all  in  cooking 
and  sewing,  though  not  all  take  it.  It  is  the  opinion  of 
the  present  director  that,  if  possible,  a  law  should  be 
enacted  to  require  every  girl  between  fourteen  and  six- 
teen or  seventeen  years  of  age  to  take  at  least  two  hours 
of  work  a  day  in  a  continuation  school. 

The  Victoria  School  has  won  an  assured  place  for 
itself  in  the  public  esteem,  and  has  many  imitators  in 
Prussia. 


VOCATIONAL    SCHOOLS    IN    GERMANY 

Since  Berlin  is  so  large  a  metropolis,  resembling  New 
York  in  the  rush  of  life  and  business,  it  does  not  sur- 
prise an  investigator  to  find  here  as  in  New  York  great 
pressure  brought  to  bear  by  parents  to  introduce  their 
children  into  wage-earning  occupations  as  early  as  pos- 
sible. It  is  in  consequence  of  the  strength  of  this  pres- 
sure that  the  Victoria  School,  which  is  for  the  poorest 
classes,  attempts  to  hold  the  majority  of  its  girls  only 
a  year  and  a  half,  and  that  the  best  equipped  trade  school 
for  girls  in  Germany,  the  school  in  Potsdam,  adapts  its 
instruction  to  a  one  year's  course  for  girls  who  must  go 
to  work. 

The  trade  school  in  Potsdam  provides  instruction  in 
four  distinct  departments: 

(1)  a  school  of  housekeeping, 

(2)  a  trade  school  in  which  courses  are  offered  in 

washing  and  ironing,  cooking  and  baking, 
simple  hand-sewing  and  machine-sewing,  the 
making  of  underwear  (lingerie),  dressmaking, 
millinery,  artistic  handwork,  drawing  and 
painting, 

(3)  a  commercial  school, 

(4)  a  normal  school. 

Some  methods  in  this  school  are  very  American;  for 
example,  the  girls  do  not  practise  their  stitches  on  samp- 
lers as  in  so  many  continental  schools,  but  on  the  gar- 
ments themselves  which  they  begin  by  making  as  in  the 
trade  schools  of  New  York  and  Boston.  They  have 

24 


VOCATIONAL    SCHOOLS    IN    GERMANY 

learned  simple  sewing  already  in  the  Volkschule.  The 
aim  seems  not  to  be  perfection  in  workmanship,  but  the 
best  that  may  be  acquired  along  with  facility  in  a  given 
short  period  of  instruction  and  practice.  To  the  super- 
ficial observer,  the  normal  school  which  is  a  regular  fea- 
ture of  the  continental  trade  school  for  girls  is  the  most 
interesting  department  to  visit  because  of  the  more  scien- 
tific character  of  its  work.  Girls  must  be  eighteen  years 
of  age  to  enter  the  normal  school,  and  are  already  more 
or  less  proficient  in  hand  work.  A  unique  feature  of 
this  school  is  the  large  collection  of  models  for  the  de- 
partment of  sewing  and  dressmaking  to  illustrate  the 
whole  process  of  spinning  and  weaving  in  cotton,  flax, 
silk,  and  wool,  and  a  second  collection  of  natural  objects 
to  illustrate  the  process  of  preparing  the  raw  material  for 
manufacture  from  the  cocoon  and  cotton  plant  to  the 
skeins  of  silk  as  they  are  imported  from  Japan  and  the 
imported  cotton  from  our  Southern  States.  Still  a  third 
collection  of  models  in  wood  silvered  over  reproduces 
every  part  of  a  sewing  machine,  the  smaller  pieces  many 
times  enlarged,  for  the  use  of  the  teacher  in  showing 
the  girls  how  to  operate  and  take  care  of  the  machine. 
Similarly  in  the  normal  class  of  housekeeping  lectures 
illustrated  from  a  collection  in  the  school  are  given  on 
all  kinds  of  materials;  for  example,  on  wood,  the  differ- 
ent kinds,  native  country,  characteristics,  value,  uses, 
etc. ;  on  glass,  its  history,  process  of  manufacture,  uses, 
etc. ;  on  pepper,  tea,  coffee,  etc.,  the  whole  history  of  pro- 
duction, preparation,  adulteration,  etc.  As  in  our  train- 


SOME    FLEMISH    SCHOOLS 

ing  schools,  the  students  in  the  normal  classes  are  given 
practice  in  teaching  by  conducting  recitations  in  the 
elementary  work  of  the  one  year  pupils  in  the  trade 
school. 

BELGIUM. 

In  passing  from  Germany  to  Belgium,  one  steps  into 
an  environment  as  different  as  the  languages  of  the  two 
peoples.  Belgium  is  a  very  industrial  country,  honey- 
combed with  mines  and  dotted  over  with  manufacturing 
towns.  Its  enterprise  may  be  measured  by  the  perfec- 
tion of  its  railway  service.  From  Brussels  to  Antwerp 
block  trains  run  every  hour  and  accommodation  trains 
between,  the  service  resembling  that  between  New  York 
and  Philadelphia,  and  to  every  part  of  Belgium  there  are 
convenient  trains  for  the  business  man  from  Brussels 
morning,  noon,  and  night. 

From  its  highly  industrial  character  one  might  ex- 
pect to  find  here  as  in  Germany  a  general  and  marked 
development  along  the  lines  of  industrial  training  in  its 
educational  system.  Yet  it  is  surprising  to  discover  in 
a  country  which  is  not  so  large  in  area  as  the  two  small 
states  of  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut  combined  over 
six  hundred  vocational  schools,  all  well  attended  and 
over  half  of  them  schools  of  trade  and  housekeeping  for 
girls.  There  is  no  compulsory  education  law  in  Belgium, 
although  throughout  the  kingdom  school  privileges  are 
provided  children  up  to  the  age  of  twelve  years,  and  at- 
tendance upon  the  trade  schools  is  voluntary.  Although 


26 


SOME   FLEMISH   SCHOOLS 

most  of  them  are  supported  by  state  and  city,  a  small 
tuition  fee  is  regularly  charged,  and  perhaps  partly  in 
consequence  of  this  practice  the  children  in  the  day 
trade  schools  are  not  in  general  from  the  poorest  classes. 

The  Belgians  are  an  artistic  people,  and  their  national 
characteristic  expresses  itself  most*  naturally  and  uncon- 
sciously in  their  schools.  Beauty  of  workmanship  is 
their  ideal  and  perfection  is  their  standard  of  work. 
The  patience  and  enthusiasm  with  which  they  strive  for 
their  ideal  leads  them  into  certain  definite  methods  of 
work  and  school  organization.  The  course  of  study  is 
nearly  always  from  three  to  five  years  long  with  both 
morning  and  afternoon  sessions  in  the  day  schools,  and 
instruction  in  academic  and  industrial  work  is  given,  the 
two  being  closely  correlated.  Since  schooling  is  not 
compulsory,  only  the  better  part  of  the  applicants  are 
admitted  to  many  schools.  As  might  be  expected  hand 
rather  than  machine  work  plays  the  leading  role,  and  ex- 
cellence in  the  artistic  trades  is  most  marked. 

To  most  of  the  trade  schools,  children  are  not  ad- 
mitted under  the  age  of  fourteen  years,  and  in  the  schools 
for  girls  in  Brussels  which  do  admit  them  younger 
scarcely  any  are  seen.  Their  absence  is  explained  on  the 
ground  that  they  do  not  progress  rapidly  and  are  there- 
fore not  encouraged  to  come.  A  certain  degree  of  ma- 
turity of  judgment  is  undoubtedly  necessary  for  progress 
in  most  trades.  Yet  what  a  child  of  thirteen  years  can  do 
under  proper  instruction  and  under  the  stimulus  of  a  high 
national  ideal  is  well  illustrated  in  the  admirable  school 

27 


SOME  FLEMISH   SCHOOLS 

for  boys,  called  L'ficole  Professionelle  d'Armurerie  et 
de  Petite  M£canique  in  Liege.  The  city  of  Liege  has 
for  centuries  been  famous  for  the  superior  excellence  and 
beauty  of  workmanship  of  its  arms,  and  the  boys  in  this 
school,  all  of  whom  are  small,  many  thirteen  years  old 
and  some  only  twelve,  produce  results  which  can  hardly 
be  surpassed  by  an  adult.  Their  hours  are  from  eight 
to  twelve  in  the  morning  and  from  half-past  one  to  five 
in  the  afternoon,  six  hours  a  week  being  spent  upon  draw- 
ing. Iron  is,  of  course,  a  soft  metal,  and  its  manipula- 
tion is  not  beyond  the  muscular  power  of  a  young  boy. 
The  first  bit  of  work  required  of  the  boy  is  to  make  a 
piece  of  rough  iron  into  a  parallelepiped  of  absolutely 
exact  measurement  and  then  to  give  it  a  high  polish.  In 
his  work  the  boy  is  not  thinking  of  economy  of  time  or 
of  the  commercial  value  of  a  highly  polished  instrument, 
but  rather  of  exactness  and  beauty,  and  a  kind  of  pleasure 
in  work  and  absence  of  hurry  seemed  to  pervade  the 
activity  of  the  workroom. 

Here  as  in  all  the  Flemish  schools  both  in  Belgium 
and  Holland  great  emphasis  is  laid  upon  drawing,  and 
the  rule  is  strictly  adhered  to  that  every  object  shall  be 
constructed  after  a  drawing  with  given  measurements 
and  not  after  a  model.  Many  hours  are  spent  upon  the 
drawing  of  a  single  object,  and  usually  three  or  four 
drawings  are  made,  of  the  face,  back,  a  section,  and 
sometimes  the  profile.  The  drawing  of  the  object  which 
the  boy  is  constructing  is  almost  invariably  pinned  up  in 
full  view  of  his  eyes  at  his  place  in  the  workshop  or,  if 

28 


SOME    FLEMISH    SCHOOLS 

not  in  plain  sight,  will  be  pulled  out  of  a  drawer  and 
displayed  at  request. 

In  the  gun-room  of  the  school  of  armory  in  Liege, 
small  boys  make  rifle  stocks  whose  parts  fit  together  with 
such  exactness  that  the  line  of  separation  is  hardly  vis- 
ible. In  another  school  in  Liege,  numbering  over  six 
hundred  pupils,  in  which  pattern-making  is  taught,  iron 
work  and  blacksmithing,  the  making  of  tools  and  con- 
structing of  machines,  of  cycles  and  automobiles,  work  of 
a  high  grade  is  done  by  boys  all  of  whom  are  small  and 
seem  young.  The  same  thing  is  true  elsewhere  in  Bel- 
gium, from  which  one  may  reasonably  conclude  that  the 
age  at  which  a  boy  may  begin  apprenticeship  work  in  the 
trades  should  be  determined  not  by  his  mental  develop- 
ment but  by  his  physical  development. 

Although  in  some  of  the  Flemish  schools,  there  seems 
to  be  a  lack  of  any  philanthropic  spirit,  the  art  and  not 
the  girl  or  the  industry  and  not  the  boy  being  upper- 
most in  the  minds  of  the  teachers,  still  in  some  schools, 
whose  character  is  determined  perhaps  mainly  by  the 
director,  the  motive  is  strongly  philanthropic.  Among 
these  may  be  mentioned  an  excellent  school  in  Ghent  for 
the  children  of  the  poor,  where  a  small  tuition  fee  is  nom- 
inally charged,  but  in  many  cases  quietly  remitted.  In 
this  school,  which  numbers  about  two  hundred  pupils, 
quite  elementary  subjects  are  taught;  such  as,  brick- 
laying, sign-painting,  house-painting,  as  well  as  also 
plumbing  and  work  in  iron  and  wood.  Here  too  the 
same  high  standard  of  excellence  may  be  observed  which 

29 


SOME    FLEMISH    SCHOOLS 

is  so  marked  in  the  Belgian  schools.  The  power  ma- 
chine, delicately  adjusted  and  exquisitely  finished,  was 
constructed  entirely  by  these  boys  who  are  training  to  be 
simple  artisans. 

Another  school  in  which  a  kindly  feeling  to  the  chil- 
dren of  the  poor  is  evident  is  the  school  of  joinery  and 
iron-work  in  the  small  city  of  Morlanwelz,  which  is  in  the 
heart  of  the  coal-mining  district  of  Belgium.  Boys  are 
admitted  here  from  the  ages  of  thirteen  to  sixteen  years, 
and  some  exceptions  are  made  in  the  case  of  those  even 
younger  who  have  completed  the  primary  school.  It  is 
thought  wrong  to  reject  from  a  trade  school  children 
who  have  no  aptitude  for  study  or  who  are  suffering 
from  natural  disadvantages,  from  slowness,  dullness,  etc. 
Therefore  all  such  are  welcomed  here.  When  this  school 
was  organized  in  1901,  there  was  much  discussion  whether 
machinery  should  be  installed  and  used  or  not,  with  the 
final  decision  that  it  was  too  expensive.  The  wisdom 
of  this  decision  is  maintained  on  the  ground  that  what 
is  especially  deplored  in  our  working-men  is  the  lack  of 
dexterity  and  professional  knowledge,  and  that  the  ap- 
prentice does  not  get  the  basis  of  either  in  the  use  of 
machinery.  Therefore  the  boys  are  taught  the  use  of 
ordinary  tools  and  precautions  in  their  use,  and  how  to 
sharpen  them  and  keep  them  in  good  order. 

In  contradistinction  with  this  position  on  the  vexed 
question  of  the  use  of  machinery  in  an  apprenticeship 
school  stands  the  great  industrial  school  for  men  and  boys 
at  Charleroi.  Over  1,000  pupils  are  in  attendance  at  this 


SOME    FLEMISH    SCHOOLS 

school,  drawn  partly  from  surrounding  factory  towns, 
since  Charleroi  is  a  city  of  less  than  50,000  inhabitants. 
The  actual  conditions  of  the  factory  workshop  are  repro- 
duced here.  Men  and  boys  work  on  the  group  or  gang 
system,  thereby  learning  co-operation  and  also  adjust- 
ment to  factory  conditions,  and  a*re  put  at  once  upon  the 
use  of  machinery.  The  machine  is  a  fact  and  cannot  be 
ignored.  The  object  of  the  apprenticeship  of  the  future 
is  not  to  teach  manual  dexterity,  but  rather  insight  into 
one's  work,  grasp,  how  to  use  a  tool  or  machine  so  as  to 
get  the  maximum  product  with  the  minimum  amount  of 
expended  energy.  The  daily  use  of  a  machine  or  tool 
does  not  give  this  facility,  as  some  may  suppose.  To 
offer  a  very  simple  illustration :  one  workman  may  ac- 
complish what  he  wishes  with  a  single  stroke  of  the  file, 
whereas  another  doing  the  same  work  may  waste  several 
strokes  because  he  is  afraid  that  he  will  press  down  too 
hard  or  drive  the  file  too  far.  His  productive  power  and 
wage-earning  capacity  are  lessened  by  his  timidity.  Not 
a  third  of  our  machines  are  worked  up  to  their  full  ca- 
pacity. Even  admitting  that  the  personal  equation  can 
never  be  wholly  eliminated  and  that  a  sentiment  exists 
on  the  part  of  some  workmen  not  to  produce  above  a 
certain  amount  in  a  given  time  lest  the  standard  of  wages 
be  lowered,  even  so  it  remains  true  that  a  great  number 
of  industrious  and  conscientious  men  are  handicapped  for 
life  by  lack  of  mechanical  training. 

The  training  at  the  school  in  Charleroi  is  very  broad 
as  everywhere  in  Belgium.     Courses  are  provided  in  three 

31 


SOME    FLEMISH    SCHOOLS 

departments,  the  day,  evening,  and  Sunday  schools,  and 
include  instruction  in  every  trade  and  every  subject  bear- 
ing upon  the  trades  from  bricklaying  and  sign-painting 
to  advanced  laboratory  work  in  which  individual  experi- 
ments are  performed  by  the  student  under  the  supervi- 
sion of  the  instructor. 

One  of  the  best  equipped  and  largest  trade  schools 
in  Belgium  is  the  industrial  school  at  Antwerp,  which  was 
founded  in  1860  and  has  been  supported  by  the  province 
and  the  state  since  1866.  The  school  is  attended  by 
1,380  pupils,  and  is  soon  to  enlarge  its  accommodations 
and  equipment.  It  is  an  evening  school;  the  require- 
ments for  admission  are  the  age  of  fourteen  years  and  a 
perfect  knowledge  of  the  four  rules  of  arithmetic;  and 
the  course  is  five  years  long  with  seven  months  a  year,  the 
first  three  years  being  given  up  to  drawing,  mathematics, 
and  bookkeeping  mainly,  and  the  other  two  to  special 
subjects  such  as  mechanics  and  woodwork,  still  an  extra 
year  being  required  of  those  who  take  plumbing,  silver- 
smithing,  electricity,  chemistry,  etc.  The  drawing  is 
done  the  first  year  entirely  from  models,  thereafter  some- 
times from  memory,  and  the  drawings  are  sent  down  to 
the  workshops  and  objects  made  from  them  without  the 
models  being  seen.  The  school  possesses  a  remarkable 
collection  of  instruments  and  apparatus  for  use  in  the 
lecture  room. 

To  visit  a  drawing  class  of  from  one  to  two  hundred 
men,  all  with  the  rough  exterior  of  daily  laborers,  to  see 
them  absorbed  in  their  difficult  tasks,  to  note  the  tidiness 


SOME    FLEMISH    SCHOOLS 

of  their  work  and  the  clean  atmosphere  of  the  well-filled 
room,  impresses  the  visitor  with  the  need  of  such  schools 
in  every  city  for  its  working-men,  who  have  learned  from 
hard  experience  to  appreciate  the  value  of  training  and 
to  regret  the  restricted  opportunities  of  their  youth. 

GIRLS   IN  THE   FLEMISH   SCHOOLS   AND   THE   ARTISTIC 

TRADES. 

The  schools  for  girls  in  Belgium,  although  very  num- 
erous, are  of  no  great  variety.  They  are  schools  of  trade 
and  housekeeping  in  which  the  trades  are  emphasized, 
or  schools  of  housekeeping  and  trade  in  which  house- 
wifery is  emphasized,  or  schools  of  housekeeping  only. 
The  Flemish  people  never  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  the 
girl  is  the  maker  and  keeper  of  the  home,  and  some 
knowledge  of  the  three  essentials  of  housewifery,  cook- 
ing, sewing,  and  laundering  is  made  possible  in  every 
trade  school  for  girls  and  compulsory  in  many. 

Since  the  course  for  a  diploma  is  always  three  years 
long  with  sometimes  a  fourth  or  fifth  year  offered  in 
special  subjects,  it  is  possible  to  plan  a  comprehensive 
and  well-correlated  scheme  of  work,  —  and  indeed  this  is 
a  universal  characteristic  of  the  Flemish  schools.  At  the 
same  time  it  is  the  custom  to  provide  for  those  who  are 
unable  to  complete  such  a  program  special  courses  de- 
signed to  meet  the  special  needs  of  various  classes  of 
workers. 

In  no  school  is  this  generosity  of  plan  more  evident 
than  in  the  school  for  housekeeping  in  Amsterdam  called 

3  33 


SOME    FLEMISH    SCHOOLS 

De  Nieuwe  Huishoudschool  te  Amsterdam.  This  school 
offers  seven  diploma  courses  of  which  three  are  normal 
courses  of  three  years  each  to  prepare  girls  to  become 
teachers  of  cooking,  of  household  science,  and  of  launder- 
ing (de  behandelung  der  wasch) ;  a  fourth  is  a  short  course 
in  the  same  three  subjects,  open  only  to  those  who  are 
already  teaching;  and  three  courses  two  years  long  are 
provided,  one  open  to  girls  of  seventeen  for  training  in 
housewifery,  one  open  to  girls  of  fifteen  for  training  as 
mothers'  helpers,  and  one  open  to  girls  of  twelve  or 
thirteen  who  are  going  into  domestic  service.  The  in- 
struction in  all  of  these  courses  aims  to  be  scientific  as 
well  as  practical,  the  chemistry  of  the  foods  being  taught 
and  the  hygiene  of  body,  house,  food,  and  clothing,  and 
not  only  the  washing  and  cleansing  of  all  kinds  of  mate- 
rials and  the  removing  of  spots  and  stains,  but  also  the 
chemistry  of  the  dyes,  the  mixing  of  colors,  andxthe  dye- 
ing of  faded  garments. 

Besides  the  seven  diploma  courses,  there  is  a  general 
course  not  leading  to  a  diploma  in  which  are  taught  sew- 
ing, patching,  fine  mending  and  darning,  the  cleansing  of 
furniture,  laundering,  the  personal  budget,  the  household 
budget,  system,  nursing,  etc.  This  is  an  excellent  type  of 
a  school  of  housekeeping.  The  thoroughness  of  its  work 
may  be  illustrated  very  simply  by  its  method  of  teaching 
patching:  a  sampler  is  made,  composed  of  nine  squares 
of  white  cloth  of  different  qualities  from  heavy  cotton 
cloth  to  the  finest  batiste,  and  a  round  patch  put  in  the 
middle  of  each. 


34 


SOME    FLEMISH    SCHOOLS 

In  the  industrial  school  for  girls  in  Rotterdam  (Indus- 
trieschool  voor  Meisjes)  the  children  have  two  hours 
practice  a  week  in  patching  and  mending  clothes  brought 
from  home.  This  school  may  be  mentioned  together  with 
the  industrial  school  for  girls  in  Antwerp  because  of  a 
certain  resmblance  in  the  teaching  of  study  subjects  and 
in  the  division  of  work.  In  both  jschools  much  time  is 
given  to  the  teaching  of  Dutch,  French,  history,  geog- 
raphy, arithmetic,  bookkeeping,  geometry,  fine  penman- 
ship, drawing,  and  elementary  sciences.  In  Antwerp,  the 
entire  morning  session  is  given  up  to  studies,  and  the 
afternoon  session  to  handwork  in  eight  different  trades: 
in  dressmaking,  lingerie,  millinery,  the  making  of  arti- 
ficial flowers,  of  corsets  and  skirts,  industrial  drawing, 
drawing  from  nature,  and  commerce;  the  study  courses 
run  through  five  years  and  are  obligatory  the  first 
two,  including  in  the  fourth  and  fifth  year,  a  very  com- 
plete lecture  course  in  practical  ethics,  one's  duty  to  one's 
self,  one's  family,  one's  country,  mankind,  savoir-vivre, 
and  the  aim  and  importance  of  education.  Girls  are  ad- 
mitted to  the  school  in  Rotterdam  at  the  age  of  thirteen 
and  in  Antwerp  at  the  age  of  twelve. 

Two  sister  schools  in  Brussels  stand  almost  unrivalled 
in  certain  lines  of  industrial  work:  the  so-called  Bi- 
schoffsheim  school,  founded  in  1865, in  which  the  emphasis 
is  placed  on  the  artistic  trades,  and  the  school  of  trade 
and  housekeeping,  called  the  fecole  Couvreur,  founded  in 
1888.  In  the  latter  school  four  classes  of  students  are 
recognized :  those  taking  the  full  course  for  the  diploma, 

35 


SOME    FLEMISH    SCHOOLS 

daughters  of  the  well-to-do  (des  grandes  families)  for 
special  courses,  servants  of  the  well-to-do  for  special 
courses,  and  affianced  brides.  The  school  is  divided  into 
two  sections,  a  lower  course  of  three  years  to  which  girls 
are  admitted  at  the  age  of  twelve  years,  and  which  is  pre- 
paratory to  the  upper  school  or  second  section,  which 
offers  special  training  in  dressmaking,  lingerie,  millinery, 
and  commerce,  and  leads  to  the  diploma.  The  lower 
school  also  provides  definite  training  in  preparation  for 
the  duties  of  wifehood  and  motherhood.  The  course  in 
domestic  economy  has  been  developed  into  a  well-rounded 
education  in  housewifery.  In  the  practical  work  of  the 
kitchen  each  girl  learns  to  prepare  a  fixed  number  of 
dinners,  each  with  a  different  soup,  entree  (hors-d'oeuvre), 
meat,  vegetables,  and  dessert;  to  prepare  special  dishes 
such  as  salads,  pickles,  jellies,  and  dishes  for  the  sick  at 
special  places  in  the  course;  to  understand  the  cost  of 
foods  and  the  economy  of  waste  material;  to  draw  the 
parts  of  animals  as  displayed  in  the  markets  and  to  prac- 
tise purchasing  in  the  markets.  The  laboratory  method 
is  not  in  use  here,  but  the  girls  work  in  small  classes 
around  a  large  cooking-stove,  the  actual  conditions  of  the 
ordinary  kitchen  being  reproduced.  Lectures  on  alimen- 
tation, hygiene,  and  maternal  pedagogy,  accompany  the 
use  of  a  text-book  on  hygiene  and  domestic  pharmacy, 
which  covers  the  study  of  diseases,  statistics,  bacteriology, 
poisons,  antiseptics,  etc.  The  lectures  do  not  give,  as 
might  be  supposed,  a  merely  elementary  treatment  of  the 
subjects  involved;  on  the  contrary,  the  treatment  is  de- 

36 


SOME    FLEMISH    SCHOOLS 

tailed.  One  illustration  of  its  character  may  be  suggestive 
of  the  whole:  not  only  are  the  chemical  components  of 
the  body  given  and  the  chemical  constituents  of  many 
foods,  such  as  milk,  fat,  etc.,  but  each  step  in  the  process 
of  digestion  is  explained  by  which  the  mineral  matter 
from  the  milk,  for  example,  enters  into  the  tissues  of  the 
body  which  require  it. 

The  Bischoffsheim  school  was  the  first  trade  school 
established  for  girls  in  Europe.  Its  main  work  is  the 
teaching  of  the  artistic  trades,  and  much  time  is  given  to 
drawing  and  painting.  Girls  are  admitted  as  young  as 
twelve  years  of  age,  though  but  few  of  this  age  are  found 
in  the  school.  The  making  of  artificial  flowers  has  become 
a  fine  art  in  the  Bischoffsheim  school.  The  equipment 
for  the  work  is  so  simple  that  it  would  be  easy  to  intro- 
duce this  industry  for  girls  into  our  own  cities.  The 
whole  outfit  occupies  one  medium-sized  light  room,  and 
consists  of  several  long,  plain  wooden  tables,  two  alcohol 
lamps  at  a  table  where  the  girls  sit  at  work,  a  glue  pot 
and  a  few  small  tools  for  each  girl,  fresh  flowers  in  vases 
for  models,  and  the  materials  out  of  which  the  flowers 
are  constructed,  white  silk  of  good  quality,  specially  pre- 
pared elsewhere  and  purchased  in  sheets,  cotton  cloth, 
cotton  batting,  paper,  and  wire,  and  on  the  walls  a  cab- 
inet of  aniline  dyes.  A  drawing  is  first  made  of  the  flower 
and  of  each  part  of  the  flower  and  colored  in  exact  tints, 
and  from  the  drawing  the  artificial  flower  is  constructed. 
Each  girl  learns  how  to  mix  the  dyes  so  as  to  produce 
all  kinds  of  neutral  tints,  and  keeps  a  book  of  drawings 

37 


SOME    FLEMISH    SCHOOLS 

and  a  note-book  in  which  the  method  of  making  each 
flower  is  written  down  in  detail.  The  flowers  are  sold  to 
the  stores,  each  girl  receiving  what  is  paid  for  her  work. 
A  two  years'  course  in  drawing  is  one  of  the  requirements 
for  admission  to  this  work. 

The  best  opportunity  for  the  investigation  of  the 
teaching  of  sewing  chanced  to  be  given  the  writer  in  the 
trade  school  in  the  Rue  du  Poigon,  Brussels,  which  is  so 
remarkable  for  its  system,  thoroughness,  and  the  perfec- 
tion and  beauty  of  workmanship  attained  that  the  subject 
will  be  treated  with  considerable  detail  here  in  the  hope 
that  it  may  prove  suggestive  and  helpful  to  teachers  of 
sewing  in  our  country.  It  ought  to  be  said  first  that  the 
learning  of  stitches  and  simple  sewing  is  compulsory  in 
the  Belgian  as  well  as  the  German  grammar  schools,  so 
that  the  girl  on  entering  from  the  grammar  school  is  not 
a  novice  though  by  no  means  expert. 

In  each  department,  the  course  begins  with  the  most 
elementary  work  and  advances  step  by  step  as  perfec- 
tion is  acquired.  For  example,  in  the  making  of  under- 
wear, in  the  first  year  perfection  is  acquired  in  all  kinds 
of  stitches  on  many  kinds  of  material;  in  the  second  year 
patterns  are  made  from  drawings  constructed  from  meas- 
ures given  by  the  teacher,  and  miniature  garments  are 
made;  in  the  third  and  fourth  years  the  girls  take  mea- 
sures themselves,  and  cut,  make,  and  embroider  the  under- 
wear. In  the  department  of  dressmaking,  stitches,  seam- 
ing, tucking,  plaiting,  etc.,  are  first  practiced  with  silk 
and  cotton  thread  on  all  kinds  of  dress  material ;  simple 

38 


SOME    FLEMISH    SCHOOLS 

articles  are  next  made  such  as  petticoats ;  and  in  the  third 
and  fourth  years  the  cutting  and  making  of  clothes  for 
children  and  women,  the  making  of  forms  and  of  dolls' 
clothes.  In  the  department  of  embroidery,  embroidery 
stitches  are  first  learned  on  thick  white  cotton  material, 
and  later  practiced  on  fine  material ;  fine  linen  is  then  given 
the  girls  which  they  make  into  hemstiched  handker- 
chiefs with  a  little  fine  drawn  work,  embroidered  first  with 
dots  in  simple  patterns,  next  with  eyelets  and  dots,  then 
with  beautifully  worked  initials  in  the  corners,  and  lastly 
with  original  designs  worked  in  the  corners.  The  work 
orate  and  beautiful  designs  in  birds,  flowers,  griffins,  etc. 
being  made  for  all  kinds  of  household  furnishings,  such 
as  curtains,  portieres,  pillows,  and  for  a  great  variety  of 
articles  for  women's  use,  such  as  silk  fans  spangled  and 
embroidered  in  delicate  colors. 

The  same  general  plan  is  followed  in  the  teaching  of 
drawing  and  designing.  All  pupils  take  the  same  prepar- 
atory work  for  two  years,  and  then  differentiate.  Those 
studying  dressmaking,  for  example,  learn  to  draw  gowns 
from  memory  and  reproduce  them  in  miniature  and  to 
draw  and  color  gowns  to  illustrate  the  history  of  cos- 
tuming. Exquisite  drawings  of  the  gowns  of  the  times 
of  Louis  XVI  are  displayed.  The  general  course  is 
characterized  by  the  same  patient  advance.  It  begins 
with  the  free-hand  drawing  of  straight  lines,  perpendic- 
ular, horizontal  and  oblique,  and  the  study  of  line  pro- 
portion, of  angles  —  the  themes  being  taken  from  hand- 
kerchiefs folded  and  draped,  from  Egyptian  patterns, 

39 


SOME    FLEMISH    SCHOOLS 

etc.  —  of  curves,  of  primary  and  secondary  colors,  and 
neutral  tints,  of  color  composition,  of  the  drawing  of 
leaves  from  nature,  —  the  dominant  color  in  a  great 
variety  being  exactly  reproduced  to  teach  the  eye  color 
discrimination,  and  also  all  the  various  tints  in  single 
leaves  being  carefully  discerned  and  blocked!  out,  —  of 
the  drawing  of  flowers,  and  finally  the  subject  of  design- 
ing in  form  and  color  composition  is  taken  up. 

The  above  outline  of  work  does  not  profess  to  be 
complete.  It  is  only  hoped  by  these  incomplete  illustra- 
tions to  give  some  idea  of  how  in  the  Belgian  schools 
highly  artistic  and  perfect  workmanship  is  actually  at- 
tained through  a  slow  and  painstaking  progress  from  the 
most  elementary  beginnings. 

THE  TEACHING  OF  DESIGNING. 

The  method  of  teaching  designing  for  the  artistic 
trades  is  the  same  throughout  the  Flemish  trade  schools. 
It  is  based  on  the  use  of  nature  motives,  the  analysis, 
conventionalizing,  and  new  combination  of  the  parts  and 
colors  of  natural  objects.  Designing  from  geometrical 
motives,  i.  e.  original  groupings  of  circles,  curves,  dots, 
diamonds,  drops,  angles,  and  the  like  into  patterns  that 
may  be  used  in  the  manufacture  of  wall  papers,  dress 
goods,  house  decorations  and  novelties  of  all  kinds,  this 
method  of  designing  is  regarded  as  elementary  and  is 
taught  in  the  lower  schools. 

The  Flemish  method  may  be  explained  by  the  accom- 
panying reproductions  of  practice  pieces  done  by  girls  in 


40 


SOME    FLEMISH    SCHOOLS 

the  industrial  school  at  Rotterdam.  Plate  No.  i  gives  a 
first  lesson  in  designing  from  the  use  of  a  nature  motive. 
A  sprig  of  leaves  with  a  blossom  was  given  the  student 
to  be  drawn  and  colored.  The  general  outline  was  ob- 
served to  be  that  of  an  irregular  triangle,  and  the  student 
was  directed  to  draw  an  equilateral  triangle.  This  was  the 
first  step  in  conventionalization.  The  blossom  which  was 
toward  the  middle  of  the  sprig  was  placed  in  the  exact 
middle  of  the  triangle,  and  itself  conventionalized.  Since 
there  was  a  leaf  in  each  corner  of  the  sprig,  one  was  put  in 
each  angle  of  the  triangle,  all  three  being  made  exactly 
alike  in  shape  and  size.  Four  colors  were  finally  selected 
from  the  leaves  and  blossom  of  the  sprig  and  introduced 
into  the  design  in  an  entirely  new  arrangement.  The  re- 
sult arrived  at  was  a  design  in  which  everything  was  sug- 
gested by  the  natural  object,  and  yet  nothing  in  the  one 
was  like  anything  in  the  other.  Leaves,  flowers,  shells, 
butterflies,  spiders'  webs,  feathers,  were  some  of  the  ob- 
jects used  for  practice  work  in  the  schools.  Even  the 
human  figure  was  found  conventionalized  and  worked 
into  a  very  original  and  artistic  design  border  in  a  school 
of  bookbinding  in  the  Rue  du  President  in  Brussels. 

This  method  may  be  subjected  to  abuse  and  misuse. 
It  is  quite  as  possible  to  make  unattractive  designs  from 
nature  motives  as  from  geometrical  motives,  and  indeed 
the  skill  which  comes  from  careful  and  complete  training 
is  so  necessary  to  the  success  of  the  method  that  it  is 
probably  better  not  to  attempt  it  at  all  unless  much  time 
can  be  given  to  it. 


SOME    FLEMISH    SCHOOLS 

The  question  naturally  arises  whether  it  is  possible 
to  cultivate  the  taste  of  a  nation.  The  German  educators 
are  quite  aware  of  the  lack  of  taste  which  is  a  defect  of 
their  people,  and  with  characteristic  thoroughness  and 
hopefulness  are  making  a  study  of  the  problem  how  to 
elevate  the  taste  of  their  nation  by  education.  Wider 
and  wider  in  the  Bezirksschulen  are  the  doors  being 
opened  to  the  study  of  drawing,  not  so  much  that  draw- 
ing may  be  learned  as  that  taste  may  be  developed.  It 
is  believed  that  children  take  more  note  of  small  objects 
than  of  large  ones,  and  on  this  principle  many  school 
buildings  in  Germany  are  now  being  built  in  a  simple 
style,  every  effort  being  made  to  make  the  entrance  or 
some  other  small  but  conspicuous  part  beautiful  in  the 
hope  that  the  child  will  notice  and  appreciate  it.  Chil- 
dren may  be  taught  to  be  attentive  to  construction  and 
color  composition  in  decoration  and  to  try  to  imitate  it, 
and  may  learn  to  observe  what  is  tasteless  in  architecture 
and  other  arts.  For  this  purpose  art  collections  are 
valuable  and  fine  pictures  in  schoolrooms.  It  should  be 
remembered,  however,  that  a  picture  has  little  or  no 
educative  value  to  the  child  if  its  beauties  are  not  ex- 
plained to  him. 

SCHOOLS  OF  THE  FOURTH  GRADE  IN  BELGIUM. 

Since  instruction  in  the  elementary  schools  in  Belgium 

is  provided  children  only  up  to  the  age  of  twelve  years  and 

since  most  of  the  trade  schools  do  not  admit  children 

under  fourteen  years  of  age,   there  is  a  hiatus  in  the 

42 


PLATE  II 


A  second  lesson  in  designing  from  a  flower  motive.     Trade  School  for 
Girls,  Rotterdam. 


SOME    FLEMISH    SCHOOLS 

school  life  of  a  child  that  needs  to  be  bridged  over 
Quite  recently  efforts  have  been  made  to  meet  this  need 
in  Brussels  and  some  other  Belgian  cities^  by  the  estab- 
lishment of  schools  of  the  fourth  grade  (Ecoles  du  Qua- 
trieme  Degre)  so-called  because  the  elementary  schools 
are  divided  into  three  grades,  primary,  intermediate,  and 
upper.  One  of  the  best  types  of  such  a  school  for  boys 
is  L'Ecole  Primaire  Superieure  Technique  in  the  Rue 
de  la  Chapelle,  Brussels.  The  school  is  preparatory  to 
a  trade  school,  and  the  course  is  so  arranged  as  to  give 
a  boy  a  glance  over  several  kinds  of  industries  in  order 
to  help  him  to  a  choice  when  he  enters  a  trade  school 
or  factory  life,  but  does  not  aim  to  teach  him  any  fixed 
trade,  simply  to  provide  une  me'thode  active  d' education 
generate. 

The  school  is  so  unique  that  its  division  of  subjects 
and  time  are  given  here: 

First  year: 

Physical  exercises  (including  gymnastics,  sports, 
under  the  direction  of  a  teacher,  swimming, 
with  hygienic  precautions  to  take,  and  rem- 
edies to  use  in  case  of  accident) 

10  hrs.  40  min.  a  week. 

Industrial  training  12  "  "      " 

Scientific        "  10  "  "      " 

Artistic  and  literary  9  "      20    "      "      " 

total  42 

43 


THE    ENGLISH    MOTIVE 

Second  year: 

Physical   exercises  10  hrs.  40  min.  2  weeks. 

Industrial  training  13  "  20 

Scientific         "  9  "  20    "      " 

Artistic  and  literary  8  "  40    "      " 


total  42 

From  time  to  time  instruction  in  morals  is  given  by 
means  of  talks.  Drawing  occupies  four  hours  a  week 
throughout  the  course.  A  peculiarity  of  this  school  is 
that  parallel  work  in  three  kinds  of  industries  is  carried 
on  in  each  class  each  week  in  the  year.  For  example, 
in  the  second  year  training  in  woodwork  occupies  four 
periods,  in  clay  modeling  two,  and  in  ironwork  six. 

In  a  school  of  the  same  grade  for  girls  in  the  Rue 
Blaes  in  Brussels,  the  industrial  work  is  arranged  on  the 
same  principle.  Parallel  instruction  is  given  in  two 
trades,  in  dressmaking  and  the  making  of  underwear. 
The  hours  in  the  girls'  school  number  thirty-three  a  week, 
of  which  fifteen  are  spent  on  industrial  work  and  drawing. 

ENGLAND. 

Some  twenty  years  ago  the  English  people  became 
aroused  to  the  fact  that  the  great  majority  of  children 
who  leave  school  to  go  to  work  between  the  ages  of 
twelve  and  sixteen  years  enter  casual  or  unskilled  em- 
ployment, and  join  the  ranks  of  the  poorly-paid  day- 
laborer  from  which  few  can  rise.  For,  in  England, 


44 


PLATE  III 


Design  based  on  a  butterfly  motive.     A  practice  piece  from  the  Trade 
School  for  Girls,  Rotterdam. 


THE    ENGLISH    MOTIVE 

although  the  law  requires  a  child  to  attend  a  day  school 
until  his  fourteenth  birthday,  still  if  in  the  opinion  of  the 
proper  authorities  there  is  good  and  sufficient  reason 
for  his  going  to  work  earlier  he  may  do  so.  Under  this 
latter  provision  of  the  English  law  children  may  and  in 
some  sections  do  go  into  the  factories  as  young  as  eleven 
years  of  age,  although  not  in  great  numbers. 

Stimulated  by  a  strong  philanthropic  sentiment,  the 
London  County  Council,  which  controls  the  schools  of 
London,  began  to'  establish  higher  elementary  schools 
which  are  central  schools  fed  from  the  lower  schools. 
Children  are  admitted  to  the  higher  schools  at  the  age  of 
twelve  who  if  they  remained  in  the  lower  schools  until 
they  were  fourteen  years  old  would  then  enter  the  trades 
or  casual  or  unskilled  employment.  The  central  schools 
provide  a  four  years'  course,  and  their  aim  is  to  keep 
children  in  school  until  they  are  sixteen  years  old,  and 
in  the  meantime  fit  them  to  enter  the  trades  or  trade 
schools  of  which  there  are  a  few  of  recent  origin  in  Lon- 
don. The  central  schools  are  in  no  sense  trade  schools 
since  shopwork  occupies  only  two  hours  and  a  half  a 
week,  but  for  the  last  six  years  they  have  taken  a  stead- 
ily increasing  bias  toward  the  trades,  and  every  subject 
is  now  taught  with  reference  to  its  bearing  upon  the 
trades;  e.  g.  trade  arithmetic,  commercial  geography, 
mechanical  drawing. 

Since  the  philanthropic  motive  is  so  strong  in  Eng- 
land, it  is  not  surprising  that  instruction  for  the  trades 
should  have  been  introduced  early  in  the  schools  for 

45 


THE    ENGLISH    MOTIVE 

cripples  and  homeless  children.  A  description  of  one 
school  for  homeless  children,  the  East  London  Industrial 
School  at  Lewisham,  may  help  us  to  understand  the 
English  motive.  The  boys  entered  at  Lewisham  are 
waifs  picked  up  in  the  streets  of  London  by  the  police 
or  by  individuals  who  report  them  to  the  police.  They 
may  be  homeless  or  orphans  or  from  bad  homes.  They 
are  not  bad  boys,  for  such  are  sent  to  the  reform  schools, 
but  they  are  those  who  are  sure  to  drift  into  a  bad  life 
if  uncared  for.  There  are  about  one  hundred  and  fifty 
boys  in  the  school,  all  boarders,  who  sleep  in  wards; 
they  are  constantly  under  supervision,  even  when  dress- 
ing in  the  morning  and  playing  in  the  playground.  They 
are  never  allowed  to  play  in  the  streets  or  to  leave  the 
premises  except  to  do  certain  specified  kinds  of  work  like 
delivering  goods. 

They  are  taken  from  the  age  of  six  years  and  up, 
and  may  by  law  be  kept  in  school  until  they  are  sixteen. 
Some  are  put  out  as  young  as  fourteen,  but  not  many. 
If  a  boy  misbehaves  after  he  has  been  placed,  he  may  be 
brought  back  and  kept  in  school  again  for  as  long  as 
three  months.  The  knowledge  of  this  serves  as  a  check. 
About  thirty  boys  are  placed  every  year,  averaging  five 
a  year  in  the  army,  ten  upon  farms  in  Wales,  and  the 
others  in  special  skilled  trades.  When  a  boy  is  ready  to 
be  put  out,  a  report  is  made  to  the  London  County 
Council  with  a  recommendation  as  to  a  trade  for  him. 
The  boy  is  then  placed,  and  the  particulars  of  his  plac- 
ing reported  to  the  Council  who  send  an  officer  to  in- 

46 


PLATE  IV 


Design  based  on  a  flower  motive.     Bischoffsheim  School,  Brussels. 


THE    ENGLISH    MOTIVE 

vestigate.  A  small  grant  is  made  the  school  when  a  boy 
under  sixteen  is  placed  to  pay  for  occasional  help  given 
him  and  for  the  visits  made  upon  him.  The  record  of 
each  boy  is  kept  for  three  years  after  he  has  left  the 
school.  He  earns  on  an  average  seven  or  eight  shillings 
a  week  to  begin  with. 

All  the  little  boys  are  taught  needle-work,  darning, 
mending,  and  shirt-making,  wood-work,  and  manual 
training.  When  the  special  trades  are  taken  up,  such  as 
tailoring  and  shoemaking,  half-time  is  given  to  the  work 
of  the  trade  and  half-time  to  the  elementary  subjects 
taught  in  the  school.  Agriculture  is  taught  those  who 
are  going  on  to  farms  in  Wales,  and  the  playing  of  band 
instruments  to  those  who  are  going  into  the  army.  The 
school  boasts  a  band  of  sixty  boys.  The  personal  super- 
vision given  the  boys  and  the  kindly  interest  taken  in  the 
career  of  each  member  of  it  has  made  this  school  a  true 
and  beloved  alma  mater,  continually  visited  by  its  grad- 
uates particularly  upon  holidays. 

As  the  London  County  Council  is  interested  in  and 
supervising  and  endorsing  the  philanthropic  work  done 
in  the  schools  for  homeless  boys,  so  in  various  other 
places  in  England  and  Scotland  the  local  school  officials 
are  actively  engaged  in  what  is  distinctively  philanthropic 
work. 

In  the  report  of  this  work  published  in  1909  by  the 
Consultative  Committee  on  Attendance,  Compulsory  or 
Otherwise  at  Continuation  Schools,  the  following  intro- 
ductory remark  is  made : 

47 


THE    ENGLISH    MOTIVE 

"  A  great  defect  in  our  social  system  is  the  absence  of 
any  plan  whereby  lads  leaving  the  elementary  schools, 
perhaps  with  good  character  and  good  ability,  can  be 
diverted  into  the  paths  of  permanent  employment,  skilled 
or  unskilled." 

From  this  report  we  give  here  the  efforts  being  made 
in  three  cities  to  remedy  this  defect.  The  work  is  partly 
in  the  nature  of  propaganda  for  the  trade  schools  and 
partly  employment  agency  work. 

At  Halifax,  England,  a  city  of  107,000  inhabitants  in 
1900,  the  chief  attendance  officer  forwards  every  Sat- 
urday morning  to  the  organizer  of  the  evening  trade 
schools  a  list  of  the  scholars  who  have  left  the  day  schools 
during  the  current  week.  On  the  following  Monday 
morning,  one  of  the  clerks  from  the  office  visits  the  home 
of  each  bpy  and  points  out  to  the  parent  the  advan- 
tages of  attending  the  evening  school.  If  the  parent 
gives  an  unfavorable  reply,  the  clerk  sees  the  boy  himself. 
One  clerk  does  all  the  work. 

At  Finchley,  a  near  suburb  of  London,  a  letter  is  sent 
by  the  headmaster  of  each  school  to  the  parents  of  every 
child  near  its  thirteenth  birthday,  inquiring  what  is  pro- 
posed in  regard  to  the  child's  career  and  offering  to 
assist  them  in  finding  a  suitable  occupation  for  him  or  her. 
As  a  result  of  the  interview  arising  from  this  letter,  the 
headmaster  fills  up  a  form  which  reaches  the  Secretary 
of  the  Education  Committee  at  the  time  when  the  child 
is  thirteen  years  and  nine  months  old,  so  that  the  Edu- 
cation Committee  has  at  least  three  months  in  which  to 

48 


PLATE  V 


Design  based  on  a  spider  and  flower  motive.     Bischoffsheim  School, 

Brussels. 


THE    ENGLISH    MOTIVE 

find  a  suitable  occupation  for  the  candidate.  At  the 
local  Education  Office,  a  register  is  kept  in  which  are 
entered  the  details  sent  in  by  the  headmasters  together 
with  the  particulars  of  the  post  where  the  boy  or  girl  is 
subsequently  employed  and  the  conditions  of  such  em- 
ployment. 

In  Edinburgh,  the  School  TBoard  has  adopted  a 
scheme  for  the  establishment  of  an  educational  informa- 
tion and  employment  bureau  under  charge  of  a  standing 
committee  of  seven  members  of  the  School  Board. 
There  will  be  associated  with  it  an  advisory  council,  con- 
sisting of  the  other  members  of  the  School  Board  and 
of  such  representatives  of  public  bodies  and  trade  asso- 
ciations as  the  Board  may  from  time  to  time  co-opt,  due 
regard  being  had  to  securing  representation  of  the  prin- 
cipal trades  and  of  women's  occupations. 

In  the  city  of  London,  the  same  kind  of  work  has 
been  begun  by  a  large  philanthropic  association  called  the 
Apprenticeship  and  Skilled  Employment  Association. 
This  association  has  organized  twenty  local  committees 
in  as  many  districts  in  the  city  and  about  ten  committees 
for  the  provinces  of  England,  and  hopes  eventually  to 
have  a  committee  for  each  district  in  London.  The 
committees  consist  of  from  ten  members  up,  some  with 
paid  secretaries  since  it  is  difficult  to  get  good  voluntary 
workers.  Each  committee  gets  in  touch  with  the  chil- 
dren of  its  own  district  who  are  leaving  school  at  the 
age  of  fourteen,  and  tries  by  a  method  of  persuasion  with 
the  parents  to  have  the  boys  apprenticed  in  skilled 

4  49 


THE    AMERICAN    SITUATION 

trades,  such  as  tailoring,  even  though  it  is  recognized 
that  they  get  lower  wages  for  some  time  than  in  some 
unskilled  occupations  like  the  messenger  service.  The 
committee  makes  a  study  of  these  boys  and  girls  to  find 
for  what  trade  each  is  fit,  visits  the  employers  in  the 
neighborhood,  secures  places  for  the  children,  and  then 
urges  them  to  go  to  the  evening  trade  schools. 

In  the  case  of  girls,  the  trade  schools  and  schools  of 
housekeeping  are  kept  entirely  separate  in  London.  In 
the  elementary  schools  sewing  is  a  required  subject  from 
the  primary  grades  up,  and  cooking  is  taught  to  all  girls 
at  the  age  of  thirteen.  It  is  very  difficult  to  get  po- 
sitions for  girls  in  certain  trades  in  which  they  might 
excel  because  of  the  opposition  of  the  trades-unions  to 
the  competition  of  women,  and  therefore  instruction  in 
these  trades  is  not  offered  girls  as  yet. 

THE  AMERICAN  SITUATION. 

On  returning  to  American  soil,  one  feels  with  fresh 
force  the  difficult  educational  problems  that  are  to  be 
solved  here,  and  the  peculiarly  practical,  democratic,  and 
optimistic  spirit  with  which  we  are  rising  to  meet  them. 
We  have  been  slow  to  recognize  them,  and  the  general 
public  does  not  as  yet  understand  them,  but  we  are  begin- 
ning to  grapple  with  them.  We  have  a  few  recent  ex- 
periments in  the  upper  grammar  grades  of  our  public 
schools  in  cities  like  Boston,  New  York,  and  Philadel- 
phia; we  have  some  factory  apprenticeship  schools  like 
the  one  conducted  on  a  large  scale  by  the  General 

5° 


PLATE  VI 


Design  based  on  a  flower  motive.     Bischoffbheim  School,  Brussels. 


THE    AMERICAN    SITUATION 

Electric  Company  of  West  Lynn,  Mass. ;  we  have  corpo- 
ration schools  for  apprentices  established  by  the  New 
York  Central  Railroad;  we  have  some  half-time  work 
and  study  schools  like  the  Fitchburg  and  Beverly  schools 
in  Massachusetts;  we  have  philanthropic  schools  like 
the  School  of  Salesmanship  in  Boston  and  the  Waterbury 
Institute  of  Craft  and  Industry  in  Connecticut;  and  lat- 
est of  all  there  is  announced  a  technical  training  school 
for  hotel  help  to  be  established  in  Indianapolis  as  a 
branch  of  the  National  Trades  School  and  Technical  In- 
stitute, to  be  maintained  by  the  International  Hotel 
Stewards  Association.  We  have  some  well-organized 
and  well-equipped  schools  that  have  passed  the  exper- 
imental stage  like  the  Hebrew  Technical  Institute  for 
Boys,  the  Manhattan  Trade  School  for  Girls,  the  New 
York  Trade  School  for  men  and  boys,  Pratt  Institute, 
Drexel  Institute,  Simmons  College.  Some  of  our  uni- 
versities are  alive  to  the  urgency  of  the  call  for  a  train- 
ing that  shall  enable  young  men  to  deal  with  modern 
industrial  questions  in  an  altruistic  spirit  and  with  some 
comprehension  of  their  meaning,  and  young  women  to 
bring  to  the  vexed  but  vital  problems  of  home  life  an 
enlightened  intelligence,  and  these  universities  are  estab- 
lishing departments  of  industrial  education  and  domestic 
science  like  Chicago  University. 

Our  problems  are  our  own.  We  are  not  much 
troubled  by  the  conflict  of  church  and  state  in  educa- 
tional affairs  as  some  European  countries  are.  We  are 
not  at  all  vexed  by  the  question  of  the  language  of  in- 


THE    AMERICAN    SITUATION 

struction  like  Germany  in  Poland.  But  our  schools  are 
sometimes  greatly  hampered  by  the  invasion  of  non- 
English-speaking  foreign-born  children  into  every  grade 
at  every  age,  reluctant  pupils  who  do  not  fit  into  our 
system,  and  we  face  a  second  even  more  difficult  sit- 
uation in  that  whatever  type  of  school  we  organize  for 
children,  we  must  not  eliminate  for  any  child  of  any 
parentage  at  any  stage  in  his  education  before  he  is  four- 
teen years  old  the  possibility  of  advancing  not  on- 
wards but  upwards  into  the  higher  pursuits  if  he  will.  It 
is  this  second  situation  which  makes  the  question  of  in- 
dustrial training  in  our  grammar  schools  so  troublesome. 
In  the  so-called  Eliot  School  in  Jamaica  Plain,  Bos- 
ton, an  experiment  is  now  in  its  third  year  which  aims 
to  meet  this  second  situation.  From  the  neighboring 
Agassiz  Grammar  School,  an  industrial  class  is  formed 
every  year  of  boys  from  ten  to  thirteen  years  of  age, 
mostly  from  the  sixth  grade,  who  must  spend  five  hours 
a  week  upon  handwork  and  at  the  same  time  are  not 
excused  from  any  of  the  regular  work  of  the  Agassiz 
School.  An  hour  and  a  half  of  the  time  is  given  up  to 
drawing.  Articles  in  heavy  paste-board  and  wood  used 
by  the  thousand  in  the  city  schools,  such  as  cloth- 
covered  pasteboard  pencil  boxes  and  wooden  bench  stops, 
are  furnished  the  schools  from  this  workshop,  and  special 
orders  are  filled  when  the  demand  comes,  for  catalogue 
boxes  for  example,  mineral  drawers,  etc.  The  room  is 
equipped  with  an  outfit  of  carpenters'  benches,  a  circular 
saw,  and  various  labor-saving  devices. 

52 


THE    AMERICAN    SITUATION 

The  school  numbers  now  132  in  three  classes,  and  the 
experiment  has  been  long  enough  continued  to  arrive 
at  some  conclusions  as  to  its  success.  Three  proven 
results  are  noteworthy:  the  boys  in  the  industrial  class 
cover  just  as  much  ground  in  their  studies  as  the  boys 
not  in  the  industrial  class,  and  do  it  in  less  time  per  week; 
the  number  of  failures  to  win  promotion  is  smaller  than 
the  average;  and  fewer  boys  from  this  class  have  left 
school  at  the  age  of  fourteen  than  would  be  expected. 
In  general  it  may  be  claimed  that  the  handwork  has  had 
a  stimulating  effect  upon  the  mental  processes,  and  has 
given  the  boys  a  better  idea  of  the  value  of  book-learning. 

The  product  is  always  designed  for  use,  and  is  of  a 
more  practical  nature  than  that  made  in  the  ordinary  man- 
ual training  school.  In  this  particular  it  differs  also  from 
what  is  produced  in  the  schools  of  the  fourth  grade  in 
Belgium,  in  which  the  articles  made  are  mainly  practice 
pieces  and  are  exceedingly  simple. 

It  is  sometimes  maintained  that  it  would  be  impos- 
sible for  us  to  introduce  into  our  educational  system  the 
German  continuation  school,  yet  such  an  experiment  is 
being  tried  this  year  in  Boston.  The  obstacle  in  the 
way  of  its  success  is  the  first  of  the  two  difficult  sit- 
uations mentioned  above  which  we  face.  Since  children 
in  the  German  schools  are  practically  all  native-born, 
every  boy  who  enters  a  continuation  school  may  be  said 
to  have  had  eight  years  of  schooling  by  the  time  he  is 
fourteen  years  old,  whereas  with  us  many  foreign-born 
children  cannot  read  and  write  English  at  the  age  of 


53 


THE    AMERICAN    SITUATION 

fourteen.  A  continuation  school,  therefore,  which  made 
a  knowledge  of  arithmetic  through  fractions  a  require- 
ment for  admission  would  exist  in  the  main  for  older 
boys  and  would  only  partially  help  in  the  solution  of  our 
problem.  As  an  illustration  of  this  we  may  cite  the  co- 
operative Y.  M.  C.  A.  and  factory  school  of  Bridgeport, 
which  provides  two  hours  of  instruction  a  week  in  the 
day-time  at  company  expense  in  mathematics,  drawing, 
and  a  little  elementary  science  to  boys  selected  by  the 
employers  who  are  interested.  The  school  grew  in  the 
first  four  months  to  number  forty-four  pupils  not  one  of 
whom  was  under  sixteen  years. 

As  a  second  illustration,  we  may  cite  the  Union  School 
of  Salesmanship  in  Boston,  a  co-operative  continuation 
school  for  salesgirls  from  five  large  mercantile  houses 
who  contribute  to  its  support  and  whose  employees  re- 
ceive instruction  five  hours  a  day  five  days  in  the  week 
in  company  time.  To  enter  this  continuation  school, 
pupils  must  be  at  least  eighteen  years  of  age. 

The  Connecticut  legislature  in  the  session  of  1909 
made  the  educational  requirements  for  children  between 
fourteen  and  sixteen  years  of  age  who  leave  school  to  go 
to  work  the  ability  to  read  fluently  and  write  legibly  in 
English  or  their  native  tongue  and  a  knowledge  of  arith- 
metic through  fractions.  In  order  to  establish  the  very 
desirable  German  continuation  school  in  our  state,  it 
would  probably  be  necessary  to  require  a  knowledge  of 
reading  and  writing  in  the  English  language  without  the 
alternative  of  such  knowledge  in  their  native  tongue. 

54 


THE    AMERICAN    SITUATION 

With  the  assumption  of  this  requirement  as  a  near 
possibility,  the  following  recommendations  are  made  to 
the  members  of  the  League  as  a  result  of  the  brief  in- 
vestigation which  we  have  been  summarizing: 

I.  that  we  advocate  the  introduction  into  our  gram- 
mar schools  in  every  town  of  20^00  inhabitants  or  over 
in  Connecticut  industrial  courses  of  five  hours  a  week 
open  to  all  children  from  the  sixth  grade  up,  and  as  far 
as  practicable  in  smaller  towns  also. 

II.  that  we  advocate  the  establishment  by  the  State 
of  day  trade  schools  in  every  town  of  20,000  inhabitants 
or  over  for  children  over  fourteen  years  of  age  who  can 
pass  an  examination  in  the  reading  and  writing  of  Eng- 
lish and  in  arithmetic  through  fractions. 

III.  that  these  schools  be  open  in  the  evening  to  all 
workmen  over  sixteen  years  of  age. 

IV.  that   special   courses   from   six   to   ten   hours   a 
week  be  obligatory  upon  all  children  from  fourteen  to 
eighteen  years  of  age  who  have  left  school  to  go  to  work, 
and  that  they  be  given  in  company  time  with  no  deduc- 
tion from  their  wages. 

The  question,  of  course,  arises  whether  an  industrial 
course  in  our  upper  grammar  grades  should  be  made 
elective  or  obligatory.  For  an  answer  to  this  question, 
we  may  refer  to  the  plan  adopted  by  the  Agassiz  School: 
that  the  five-hour-a-week  apprenticeship  work  be  offered 
as  an  elective,  and  two  hours  a  week  of  manual  training 
be  obligatory  upon  all  not  electing  the  workshop  course. 
When,  however,  the  apprenticeship  instruction  has  passed 


55 


THE    AMERICAN    SITUATION 

the  experimental  stage,  if  it  becomes  certain  that  it 
stimulates  the  children  to  do  better  school  work  in  a 
shorter  amount  of  time  and  if  its  popularity  grows,  it 
seems  likely  that  the  demand  for  it  will  become  general 
and  that  it  will  in  time  supersede  the  manual  training  for 
all  pupils. 

If  we  are  really  thinking  of  real  people  with  real 
wants  to  be  satisfied,  we  cannot  fail  to  see  how  varied 
these  needs  are :  there  is  need  in  our  greater  cities  of 
a  one-year  trade  school  for  those  girls  and  boys  upon 
whom  the  pressure  is  almost  irresistible  to  earn  even  a 
small  weekly  wage;  there  is  a  large  place  for  two-year 
trade  schools,  particularly  in  cities  the  size  of  Bridge- 
port and  New  Britain  in  which  two  such  state  trade 
schools  have  just  been  organized ;  there  is  a  large  number 
of  boys  and  girls  in  all  cities  who  must  enter  wage-earning 
occupations,  commercial  or  industrial,  early  and  yet  are 
not  under  immediate  pressure  so  to  do,  who  can  afford 
several  years  in  which  to  fit  themselves  for  a  high  grade 
of  work  in  any  given  vocation ;  and  there  is  a  demand  for 
diversified  secondary  schools  which  may  be  preparatory 
for  the  higher  schools  of  technology  and  the  colleges, 
or  may  furnish  the  sum  total  of  culture  desired.  It  is  to 
be  noted  that  in  the  Saxon  scheme  the  claims  of  all  these 
classes  are  definitely  met. 

In  response  to  these  various  demands,  all  kinds  of 
such  schools  are  already  being  organized  in  American 
cities  scattered  over  a  wide  territory,  but  no  general 
scheme  of  education  has  yet  been  evolved  to  include  them 

56 


THE    AMERICAN    SITUATION 

all.  An  interesting  plan  for  New  York  State  has  been 
worked  out  by  Dr.  Andrew  S.  Draper,  Commissioner  of 
Education,  which  provides  for  an  elementary  school  of 
six  grades  and  differentiated  secondary  schools  beginning 
thereafter.  A  child  of  twelve  years,  at  which  age  he  is  sup- 
posed to  have  completed  the  sixth  grade,  is  too  young  to 
have  a  bent  toward  any  kind  of  a  vocation,  and  the 
question  may  be  raised  in  regard  to  Dr.  Draper's  scheme 
whether  vocational  direction  at  this  point  does  not  as- 
sume too  much  responsibility. 

Whatever  system  of  industrial  education  it  is  that  we 
are  little  by  little  developing  in  the  United  States,  it  is 
so  far  of  a  most  practical  kind.  In  our  girls'  schools  we 
are  not  teaching  perfect  sewing  upon  practice  samplers  - 
many  are  the  tears  that  are  shed  upon  these  same  beauti- 
fully wrorked  samplers  we  are  told  —  but  the  child  is 
put  at  once  upon  the  making  of  articles  for  daily  use, 
her  sewing  apron  and  workbag,  and  learns  by  making  a 
series  of  garments  not  exquisite  workmanship,  but  how 
to  sew  well  enough  in  a  short  course  to  get  and  keep  a 
place  in  a  dressmaker's  shop.  Our  boys  are  taught  for 
example  that  perfect  finish  is  to  be  given  a  tool  only  when 
it  brings  a  higher  price  in  the  market.  At  the  same  time 
all  our  schools  are  aiming  to  produce  a  higher  grade  of 
work  than  is  put  on  the  market  by  the  manufacturers  of 
cheap  commodities. 

Another  characteristic  of  our  industrial  work  outside 
of  the  grammar  grades  and  the  manual  training  depart- 
ments seems  to  be  a  tendency  to  produce  even  in  practice 


57 


THE    AMERICAN    SITUATION 

work  what  is  of  real  value,  not  diminutive  garments  and 
miniature  chairs  and  bureaus,  but  garments  to  be  worn, 
book-cases  to  be  used.  This  is  more  interesting  and 
more  stimulating. 

Our  love  of  what  is  stimulating  may  be  given  another 
illustration  from  a  comparison  of  the  rare  collection  of 
art  objects  at  Drexel  Institute  with  the  beautiful  and 
much  more  extensive  and  comprehensive  collection  in  the 
Zeichnungsschule  in  Dresden.  The  German  collection, 
one  must  suppose,  is  of  greater  value  to  the  instructor 
as  illustrative  material  for  lectures  on  the  history  and 
character  of  every  kind  of  art  from  pottery  and  sculpture 
to  textile  fabrics,  but  the  Drexel  collection  is  unique, 
excites  the  admiration,  catches  and  chains  the  attention 
as  the  other  does  not.  As  the  old-fashioned  New  Eng- 
lander  might  say  "  We  admire  to  be  interested." 

Whatever  may  be  said  for  or  against  our  methods, 
one  thing  is  plain  to  the  most  superficial  observer  who 
has  reached  the  age  at  which  he  has  a  backward  per- 
spective that  appreciation  of  the  beautiful  in  the  fine  arts 
has  received  a  great  impetus  from  somewhere  in  the  last 
quarter  of  a  century.  Taste  in  architecture  is  more  gen- 
eral, book  illustrations  are  of  a  far  higher  order,  house 
decoration  is  simpler  and  more  tasteful  in  the  homes  of 
culture. 

Indeed,  we  beg  leave  to  close  this  very  hasty  and  in- 
adequate glance  over  a  subject  rich  with  suggestions  with 
the  simple  proposition  that  we  are  not  dreamy  thinkers 
in  the  United  States,  we  are  trying  to  think  with  a  pur- 

58 


PLATE  VII 


Design  based  on  a  thistle  motive.     Bischoffsheim  School,  Brussels. 


THE   AMERICAN    SITUATION 

pose,  to  focus  our  thoughts  upon  some  near  and  real 
result,  and  we  advance  with  an  optimism  which  is  not 
crude  but  born  of  real  opportunity. 

MARY  CROWELL  WELLES, 
General  Secretary  of  the  Consumers' 

League  of  Connecticut. 
Newington,  Ct. 
February,  1911. 


59 


THE    AMERICAN    SITUATION 


The  following  Exhibit  is  in  the  possession  of  the 

League  : 

I.      From  De  Industrieschool  voor  Meisjes,  Rotterdam, 

(a)  Ten  articles  to  illustrate  the  teaching  of  lingerie  by  re- 
quiring the  pupils  to  make  diminutive  garments. 

(b)  Four  samplers  to  illustrate  the  teaching  of  fine  darning 
and  re-knitting. 

(c)  One  sampler  to  illustrate  the  teaching  of  tailoring. 

(d)  Four  large  practice  pieces  in  colors  to  illustrate  early 
lessons  in  the  teaching  of  designing  from  nature  motives. 

II.      From  L'Ecole  Professionnelle  Funck,  Brussels, 

Nine  articles  to  illustrate  the  teaching  of  lingerie  by  re- 
quiring the  pupils  to  practise  sewing  and  embroidery 
stitches,  buttonholing,  tucking,  etc.,  upon  samplers. 

III.  From  L'Ecole  Bischoffsheim,  Brussels, 

(a)  Six  photographs  to  illustrate  advanced  work  in  design- 
ing from  nature  motives. 

(b)  Flowers     and     materials    to    illustrate    artificial-flower 
making. 

IV.  From  L'Ecole  Professionnelle  et  Menagere,  Ave.  de  la  Toison 

d'Or,  Brussels, 

(a)  One  sampler  to  illustrate  the  first  month's  work  of  the 
first  year  in  lingerie. 

(b)  One  sampler  to  illustrate  the  first  month's  work  of  the 
second  year  in  dressmaking. 

V.      From  L'Ecole  Professionnelle  pour  Jeunes  Filles,  Antwerp , 

One  sampler  to  illustrate  the  teaching  of  drawn  work  and 
embroidery  stitches  in  silk. 


60 


THE  AMERICAN   SITUATION 

VI.      From  the  public  grammar  school,  Morlanwelz, 

Seven  samplers  to  illustrate  the  teaching  of  stitches  in 
the  elementary  grades. 
VII.      FromJDie  Handels-und  Gewerbeschule,  Potsdam, 

(a)  Four  samplers  to  illustrate  patching  and  seaming. 

(b)  One  piece  of  art  work. 

VIII.      From  the  Waterbury  Institute  of^  Craft  and  Industry, 

Eleven  pieces  to  illustrate  the  first  twelve  lessons  in 
pillow  lace-making. 
IX.      An  exhibit  is  promised  from  the  State  Trade  School,  Bridgeport. 


61 


THE   AMERICAN    SITUATION 


The  Schools  visited  by  the  Investigator  of  the 
League. 

HOLLAND. 

De  Nieuwe  Huishoudschool Amsterdam 

De  Dagteeken  en  Kunstambachtschool       ...  " 

De  Industrieschool  voor  Meisjes  ....  " 

De  Ambachtschool        .......  " 

De  School  Quellinus 

De  Industrieschool  voor  Meisjes Rotterdam 

BELGIUM. 

Ecole  Industrielle Antwerp 

Ecole  Professionnelle  pour  Jeunes  Filles     ...  " 

Institut  du  Sacre-Coeur  de  I'lmmacul6e  Conception  .        Heverle 

Ecole  Bischoffsheim Brussels 

Ecole  Professionnelle  de  Tailleurs       ....  " 

Ecole  Professionnelle  de  Mecanique  de  Precision 

d'Horlogerie  et  d'Electricite  .... 

Institut  Jean  Bethune " 

Ecole  de  Typographic 

Ecole  de  Tappissiers-Garnisseurs         ....  " 

Ecole  de  Reliure  et  de  Dorure " 

Ecole  Couvreur,  Professionnelle  et  Menagere     .  " 

Ecole  Professionnelle  pour  Jeunes  Filles 

Rue  du  President 
Ecole  Prof  essionnelle  pour  Jeunes  Filles      ...  " 

( Rue  du  Poingon ) 

Ecole  Professionnelle  et  Menagere      ....  " 

Ecole  Primaire  Superieure  Technique         ...  " 

(filles)      . 

College  Saint-Louis Liege 

Ecole  Professionnelle  de  Mecanique    .... 
Ecole  Professionnelle  d'Armurerie  et  de  Petite 

Mecanique 

62 


THE    AMERICAN    SITUATION 


Ecole  Industrielle  et  Commerciale  .. 

Ecole  Professionnelle  des  Metaux  .. 

Ecole  Professionnelle  du  Batiment  .. 

ficole  Industrielle  et  Professionnelle  . 

Ecole  pour  Jeunes  Filles 

Ecole  Superieure  des  Textiles 

Ecole  Professionnelle,  Industrielle,  Superieure 


Ghent 


Morlanwelz 

Verviers 
Charleroi 


GERMANY. 

Kunstgewerbe-  und  Handwerkerschule       .        .        .        Cologne 
Victoria-Fortbildungs-Schule        .....         Berlin 

Handels-und  Gewerbeschule        .....        Potsdam 

Obligat  Gewerbliche  Fortbildungsschule     .         .         .         Charlottenberg 
Biirgerschule          ........        Dresden 

Stadtische  Gewerbeschule     ...... 

Stadtische  Gewerbeschule  (  Schiilerinnen-Abteilung  )  " 

Gewerbliche  Fach-und  Fortbildungsschule 

Fleischer-Inn  ung  ....  " 

Buchdruckereibesitzer-Innung      . 
Konditoren-Kreis-Innung  .  " 

Schornsteinfeger-Kreis-Innung  .  '  ' 

des  Vereins  Dresdner  Gastwirte          .  '  ' 

Tapezierer-Innung        ....  " 

Zeichnungsschule  .......  " 

Konigliche  Akademie    fur  Graphische  Kunste  und 

Buchgewerbe  .......        Leipsic 

Carola-Schule         ........  " 

Stadtische  Gewerbeschule  und  Maschinenbauschule  " 

Frauenarbeitschule  und  Arbeitslehrerinnen-  Seminar        Munich 
Gewerbliche  Fachliche  Fortbildungsschulen      .  " 

Buchdrucker  und  Schriftsetzer 
Lithographen  und  Steindrucker 
Metallgiesser  und  Giirtler 


ENGLAND 


Dartmouth  Home  for  Cripples 
East  London  Industrial  School 


London 


THE   AMERICAN    SITUATION 

THE  UNITED  STATES 

North  Bennet  Street  Industrial  School         .         .         .  Boston 
Union  School  of  Salesmanship      .....  " 

Sloyd  Manual  Training  School     .         .         .     •    .         .  " 

Trade  School  for  Girls " 

Eliot  School 

Independent  Industrial  School     .....  Newton 

Textile  School New  Bedford 

Technical  High  School Springfield 

Manhattan  Trade  School  for  Girls       ....  New  York 

Trade  School  for  Boys " 

Hebrew  Technical  Institute  for  Boys          ...  " 

"    Girls  ... 

Pratt  Institute Brooklyn 

Drexel  Institute Philadelphia 

Boardman  High  School New  Haven 

Institute  of  Craft  and  Industry Waterbury 

State  Trade  School New  Britain 

State  Trade  School Bridgeport 

Co-operative  Factory  and  Y.  M.  C.  A.  School    .        .  " 

Sigourney  School  .......  Hartford 

Vacation  Schools  .......  " 

Middletown 

Thanks  are  due  for  general  letters  of  introduction  to  Dr.  G.  C.  F. 
Williams,  President  Arthur  T.  Hadley,  President  Flavel  S.  Luther, 
Governor  Frank  B.  Weeks  and  our  foreign  embassies  and  legations,  and 
for  personal  letters  to  Professor  Henry  W.  Farnam  of  New  Haven,  Dr. 
Robert  Wuttke,  Dr.  Lyon  and  Dr.  Roscher  of  Dresden,  Dr.  Georg 
Kerschensteiner  of  Munich,  Dr.  Francke  and  Dr.  Kuhnow  of  Berlin,  M. 
J.  Stevens  and  M.  Mabille  of  Brussels,  Mr.  Loring  of  London,  and  to  the 
directors  of  the  schools  visited  whose  courteous  help  made  the  work  of 
investigation  so  pleasant  and  easy. 


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